Obscene Finds

The idea is bragging on finds you found dirt cheap that sell for bookoo-bucks.

Recent obscene fine example #1: La cognizione del dolore (Acquainted with Grief) by Carlo Emilio Gadda.

Obtained for a paltry $.79 U.S. dollars at local thrift shop, selling (the ed. I acquired) minimum, $47 and change, upwards of three figures elsewhere. Nice investment of three quarters and four pennies I must say.

Can you better it, or come close to bettering it?

Found the original draft of the "seven pillars" in a railway coach. Yes granddad worked at the railway station. Will not sell it, but exchange it for the MADOC made by William

Stop kidding around you Big Mac HAM Burger!

I have absolutely no idea if I have found any valuable book for an obscenely cheap price. I must confess I am one of those people who when she knowingly stumbles upon something really valuable being sold for an extremely, obscenely cheap price tells the owner that the item in question should be taken to an appraiser. I have absolutely no idea why I do obscenely stupid things like this. I consider it a side effect of a childhood that eerily resembles a Faulkner novel. When I read Faulkner I have panic attacks. My life was hell, the semester I fecklessly signed up for a seminar class on his novels. I have not reread a single Faulkner novel except for The Sound and the Fury. I reread this one occasionally because the end keeps changing in my edition. I have owned this book for 30 years. I consider it cursed. It is not nice to pass cursed items on to others, so I am stuck with it. When I purchased it, it was a used edition. Someone out there (and that person knows who s/he is even if I don't) passed the cursed copy on to me. I do not consider such behavior kind.

What I do have is Meinertzhagen Army Diary 1899 1926 first edition that I got for free. Not a big name but highly searched after

Oh it is good to have Urania back, in it, Mac?

Six months before David Foster Wallace died, I literally stumbled upon a first edition of Infinite Jest in mint condition that was on the floor of the bookshop, waiting to be shelved, that I hastily plucked and bought for $9.95. I'm not happy at all that later that Sept., the author of said book tragically took his life, but it's given my first edition some life it wouldn't have otherwise had. Now, of course, it's merely a second printing (the damn number line only goes down to 2 instead of 1, damn number line!) so it's not a first printing where the real obscene value lies, but it could still fetch me $50 or $60 were I interested in selling it.

First printings of Infinite Jest, last time I checked (assuming near-mint to mint condition) were going for $300 - $500. With an autograph the value rises into the low four digits.

Bookfinder.com provides you with some really good ball park figures for your books. Fun to play around with and see if you've got some diamonds on your shelves.

Thanks for posting this. This is one compulsion, one obsession I understand.

the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, found in the Oxford store in Chennai, just when it came out, for mere 300 plus euros. Rupees? somewhat more, near 20,000 I think.

The thing is I was writing a history of maritime that was to be used as a text book in my upcoming course in the subject. I had to buy it, but later, upon return, found that I could pay for it using my research money. so I got it free.

However, our school combined maritime with general traffic and the gt cabal was in charge, still is, was cutting English, battering maritime, and did not want my class taught. 'This school is 100% technical' i was told. When I finished my book, the rug was pulled out from under it and used to smother the course itself. a Polish maritime school was going to publish it, but I recently spoke with one of the heads of the program there and he told me there would be absolutely no money in it for me, contrary to his previous expectations. So now I am waiting to decide what to do.

But! The story continued last week when I received a list of books from my ex-university that i was to return because they were bought with my research money and thus belonged to the university. The encyclopedia was on the list, naturally. So that day I saw the librarian and told her that as the school did not publish the book, I decided to turn it into a five volume history and would need the books for at least another ten years. She asked, but could you return the two Slovene language books, at least? Hah! where DID I put those little fuckers?

haha well done!

well done indeed!

Herzog first movie was filmed with a stolen camera HAH

I can't resist putting this here, under this rubric, because I think it's TRULY obscene:

>13 richardderus: that has to be a prank.

Now that's thinkin' outside the box, Richard, but not outside the bun.

It's a prank, alright, but a majorly unfunny one! Appalling to think this is funny to someone in this day and age.

In 1985, I walked into the going-out-of-business sale of a Philadelphia book store and walked out with a stack of paperbacks. Within the haul was a first edition, first printing (okay, back then it was the only edition and printing) of a novel by an unknown writer-- Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson. She didn't stay unknown long, and the book's now worth about 500.00, I'm told.

17> nice one!

13> Okay, what did I miss? I'm always a day late and a dollar short!

19: It was a (pretty clearly "shopped") photo of a Mickey D's with a sign in the window that said something like "due to theft we are charging African Americans a surcharge of X%". I did not think it was very funny, either...

Just bought Graves' Good-Bye to All That for only $1! The librarian had just placed it on the books for sale shelf, and I just happened to be there. It's in perfect condition, and looks like no one has ever cracked it open.

Once at a yard sale I found a book with pictures by a woman who was one of the background players in the original production of Oh, Calcutta!. While not necessarily obscene, it had a rather refreshingly frank discussion of public nudity and this woman's experiences with the production. I only glanced at it and did not buy it. I have regretted not buying it ever since. I think they were asking seventy-five cents.

21> I love those library book sales. Is it a first, bubba? I'm trying to think what my best grab has ever been from the library ... in the last year I got older 60s editions of Under the Volcano & Dr. Zhivago that weren't those ubiquitous book clubbers that I avoid like the plague unless I'm desperate just to at least have a reading copy of whatever book it is I've inevitably been jonesing for for years; but I think I've done better than those two, I may need to go look ...

24> Nope, not a first. Each of our library locations put out a few books for sale (this one was at our main branch.) We also have a used bookstore, Recycled Reads. They sell hardbacks for $2, and paperbacks for $1. I have made some great finds there; excellent selection of classics, but woefully lacking in postmoderns (I guess not too many people getting rid of those,) although I did find Auster's "New York Trilogy." I really wanted that one, but I was there on business, when they weren't officially open, and I couldn't buy it. I got back there as soon as I could on their next open day, but was too late. It was gone!

OMG. {THAT is the first time I've used that sophomoric acronym}

I just returned from a library book sale comprsing an eighth of a million titles! Held in a middle school; the gym, cafeteria and other rooms were crammed with books and funny folks with scanners, firing away at ISBN codes on back covers. I left with a box of treasures. 'Felt like Lord Carnavan or Indiana Jones.

Ah, the pleasures of living in suburbia!

Give us the highlites Dawg.

Well, I saw so, so many books that I've previously purchased at used book stores (for much higher prices).

I was able to scarf up Adolphe, Grant a Biography, The Legacy of Chernobyl, Travels with my Aunt, Bel canto, Shantaram, The Rape of Nanking, some nature books, including some about plnats, and others, all for the cost of a handfull of dry, generic kibble.

Just got back from NOLA, and went to a few bookstores while wandering around the French Quarter, not expecting much...came across the complete (four-volume) original 1954 edition of Joan Corominas' Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana, being sold as a set for $45. Bought that. It was worth lugging around a box with thirty pounds or so of books for a few hours as we did some other shopping down there (resulting in obscene amounts of sweat dripping down my face) to now have this awesome dictionary on my bookshelf. Somebody's selling the four individual volumes online for $100+ apiece, and later editions go for upwards of $1,000. The former avid baseball card collector in me was thrilled to find such a steal. I thought the elderly bookseller looked a bit crestfallen as he swiped my debit card and helped me put my purchase in a box; it looked like maybe decades had passed since that price was written in pencil inside the front cover.

29> that is ... OBSCENE.

Good for you. Sucks for the seller.

I found an early edition of REBECCA whose comparable examples go for $400+ on Bookfinder. Paid $5 at a charity shop. My husband found a bootleg Taiwanese copy of a Robert Heinlein book for $4 that shows up on Bookfinder for $200+. I don't know how "valuable" these really are, but they're cool!

@30: re-reading my previous post, it might sound a bit mean-spirited. I hope it didn't come off that way. I was excited to find a book I'd never thought I'd be able to afford, and the bookstore was a very good one, with glass cabinets full of expensive first editions behind the front desk. I think they just neglected their upstairs, foreign languages section, which outside of my find was very shabby. I thought the bookseller realized I'd gotten a good deal, but he didn't hesitate to sell me the books, and he seemed happy for me as he packaged them up.

Fellow comrades, salonistas, check these sales out for mucho potential obscene finds:

http://www.booksalefinder.com/

This addictive personality (I went through a milk bone and pup- peroni phase) arose and headed out to the Westport book sale. A moderate one - a mere 80,000 titles. Porsche SUVs, dusky rose shorts with little whales on them and "pros" flailing scanners and chucking books into boxes and bags. Again, what an entertaining experience.

I wouldn't know a rarity if it bit me in my furry ass, but what fun! 'A beautiful doorstop paperback Seidensticker copy of The Tale of Genji. Proust's Way, The Koran, a dozen great summer-read travel books, et multi all. Again, for the cost of a few cans of Alpo.

Dawg, I think that's my new favorite website.

Ain't it grand? In addition to temperature forecasts, we can now remind one another of awesome book sales!

Mr. Durick, uhm, which book sales would you go to?

;)

I recently found a first ed. of All the King's Men (1946) at a local haunt for $1.29. I had to try not to act excited when I placed it on the counter by the cash register. Now, unfortunately for me, the dust jacket (as you can see below) has seen better days -- nowhere remotely close to mint or near-mint condition, and it's got those dratted library stickers inside that are automatic value-killers, but still, it's a wonderful starter first edition.



Abe Book's listings has it going between $20 (for a copy like mine), all the way up to $9,500 for a signed, mint condition copy.

I love the artwork -- worth the buck twenty-nine I spent alone -- regardless of it's meager resale value.

Well, I think I have a pretty good obscene find - that got away.

Some years ago, my wife was at a yard sale and found a dusty and somewhat damaged old book, a double elephant folio, that had in it some lithographs with the name of one of my ancestors, the fellow in the kilt who shows up on my profile. The problem was she was 1500 miles from home, it was a big, very old book, it was in bad condition (though one of the lithos from my ancestor was apparently pristine), it wasn't even complete, with some torn pages and the like, she kind of figured it was a copy, and getting it home would be a huge pain, so, even though they were only asking $20, she decided against getting it.

The thing is, there was a strike in the shop where my relative worked, so they only printed the first 10 prints; the final printing of the book involved was finished by another shop. As a result, his name is inscribed, below the shop's master printer, in just two of the lithos in Audobon's Birds of America. The book was reworked in subsequent printings, and his name is one of the ways first and other very early editions can be identified.

My stomach just fell out of my gut hearing that, Sam. Oh man. That could've paid for your son's college tuition!

We don't know if it was a first or an early, or how complete it was. But, yes, there is some chance it could have a good chunk of that tuition.

Enrique, I'm totally jealous! That's one of my all-time favorites and I would LOVE to have even a less-than-steller-condition copy.

I've no real intention of grabbing any obscene finds this weekend. 'Too many pros go to this local 140,000+ library book sale. The weekend will more likely be more quantity-not-quality.

I carted 3 big cartons out of this last library book sale. But I had to keep walking past a lot of gems, especially the house-bursting sets. Two cases of Balzac, priced at $100, marked down today for $10. A huge box of a 1929 Trollope set, priced the same.

Oh, the Trollope, the pain, the pain.