Interesting Things Found In Second Hand (used) Books

I brought home a bunch of books today, and found a picture postcard dated from 1959 in one, and an old valentine as well.

Then in a book I received in the mail today, I found a 5x7 portrait of an adorable boy, standing next to a large number '3'.

I figured the former stuff was probably from an estate sale, but the latter is a photo of someone's little pride and joy, and I wish I knew a way to get it back to them.

What have you found in second hand books?

I bought a Russian dictionary second hand years ago, and it has a clipped out French newspaper article in it, and then stuck in the back is a postcard, which has the following written on it:

SC 16.XI.55

Do bring Russian-English dictionary, Bonamo, fat small red book; Russian grammar Duft, small red book; Tchekov plays, black paper cover; all I think towards R. hand end of transverse wall shelf in my room. And Levmontev, some of the poems, brown book (/in Cyrillic/Levmontov), maybe in sitting room or upstairs. Lunch next week some time. I go to Marlborough today. You choose. I feel I shall blunder in some unexpected way. George gets home on 25th and wants ?me to need him.?

Q

It's addressed to a Dr (Name Redacted) of Chinmor (I think), Oxon.

It's all innocent, I'm sure, but a postcard written in the 50s about bringing Russian books to an Oxford Dr, and possibly an affair (who's George, and why is Q worried about blundering?). I want to imagine all sorts of interesting things about it.

Edit: Ooh, I only just noticed now, that the name of the owner on the frontispiece is probably the husband of the person who the postcard is addressed to. How I'd love to know the story behind it!

That's a fascinating postcard, Choreocat.

A number of years ago I bought a Bible second hand, and in the back were student's papers to be graded.

Plane tickets. I've found at 3 in three different books; two from Japan, one from India. My best guess is that someone picked up a book to read on their trip, didn't care for it, and donated it. I've also found postcards and a couple random pictures.

I recently found a concert ticket, autographed, from some singer that I've never heard of.

Please tell us the name....

I found nothing spectacular, but one time I found a business card. It had a business address with 2 telephone numbers, one "facsimile" number and a telex number. All of them were under old area code (the area code was changed twice in last three decades), and the address of the office showed the building which was demolished about twenty five years or so ago ... the block is now a huge shopping area with a lot of restaurantes. While looking at the card in the book, I thought about Rip Van Winkle ...

An interesting thing -- to be found not IN a 2nd hand book, but SURROUNDING 2nd hand books, would be -- the 2nd hand book store itself.

Where, except for a thrift shop, do you find a collection of 2nd hand books these days?

#7 - There are still a few of the shops left! Also library sales, flea markets, yard sales and such. I often buy second hand used books from Amazon, but I can't remember every finding anything in those.

Only thing I recollect finding recently is a strip of stickers with some sort of possibly anime drawings of a female head cartoonish character. There was a different character for each of the seven deadly sins. Anger, sloth, lust, greed and so on. I'm saving it for a bookmark when I read a really depraved book. Probably one by a Russian. ;)

I've found plenty of interesting items in books over the years. I used to buy tons of books at estate auctions, keeping what I wanted, selling or donating the remainder and I learned to go through each book looking for items stuffed inside. I've found money ($20s mostly) in some, postcards are always interesting, business cards, cool bookmarks, letters, newspaper clippings, dried / crushed flowers, the list could go on and on. When I go out treasure hunting books, it's like a second treasure hunt when I get them home and start looking through them!

>5 Esta1923: Had to check the name on that ticket: Gillian Welch.

I found a sticky note inside a copy of Hashish: A smuggler's Tale saying that it had been bought in a used bookstore in Madrid. Last night I opened up Hawaii Cooks: Flavors from Roy's Pacific Rim Kitchen which I recently picked up at a library sale and found a sheet of paper with three naughty limericks about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal.

I've found a number of boarding passes, typically at the point where the pages go from thumbed to pristine.

I've probably left a few boarding passes behind too.

One time I pulled off the shelf a book of poems that an old boyfriend from years earlier had given me to read and I'd never looked at. The boyfriend was long gone by then. When I opened the book, a two-page letter fell out. It turned out to be addressed to my former boyfriend from his (still earlier) former girlfriend. I hesitated, and then curiosity overcame me and I read it. It contained much more explicit language than I would have dreamed of putting into writing, together with the implication that the book was a gift from her to him. I couldn't help wondering whether he had ever actually seen it.

Earlier this year I received a book from an online source, and found a dollar bill inside, apparently used as a marker.

Too bad they didn't use a larger denomination...

What a story, Meredy! I am sure that qualifies as "too much information" in terms of what you now know about the pair's relationship. (At the risk of being indiscreet, is it possible he MEANT for you to find it? To create a confrontation? You don't need to answer; I'm just speculating on the possibilities.

The most serious thing I have ever encountered in the pages of a book I purchased used was a doctor's letter with diagnosis and ab accompanying prescription. I was so taken aback that I seriously wondered if I should try to contact the doctor (based on his letterhead). Then I realized that it was at least seven years old and that if someone were going to expire from not taking the prescription, it would likely have already happened. But it did worry me even so!

Jillmwo, I don't think so, although it's possible. This guy seemed to enjoy bragging to me about his past girlfriends, and this was one he hadn't even mentioned to me. At any rate, I didn't recognize the name signed at the end.

Maybe the name she used was a pet name and not her real name. That's possible, too, since she addressed him using a babytalk pet name that I knew his mother called him by. (I wouldn't ever call a guy by his mother's nickname for him unless I wanted him to think of her whenever I spoke to him.)

I just think it's most likely the case that he never opened the book and either never saw the letter or forgot about it, and then he gave it to me without looking. And I didn't look inside until at least ten years later, when I happened to notice it on my bookcase and thought, "What is this? I don't remember it." I liked poetry, but I didn't think he knew enough to choose some for me, and probably when we broke up I just forgot I had the book.

Doesn't this little story seem like it might have some fictional possibilities?

Working in a used bookstore, I have found a lot tucked between the pages.  The best so far is a rose pressed into an old, leather-bound classic.  I even pricked my finger on one of the thorns, so if this were a fantasy, I'd be dead or something close to it.

I bought a second hand book a while ago and only looked in it for the first time today. I didn't notice that it has the original receipt from 1997 taped in the front cover. It struck me as an odd thing to do, but it could lead to some interesting things - like reminiscing about how cheap books used to be (though this one was pretty expensive at $16.95 for a paperback in 1997).

Was it an import, perhaps? Or was it a scholarly press book? I don't remember paperbacks running that high back then except for titles like that.

In a similar vein to #18 I found a receipt from a second hand bookshop dated 24th July 1917. Then it cost Hugh Nicol 3 shillings; it cost me £3.

From the other stuff in it I see it was first sold by John Thornton's bookshop (33 High Street Oxford) to A Angel of Christ Church College, Oxford. A case of nominative determinism?

A bus ticket, to outside of town
A flower, pressed, from a meadow
A ticket for the train, to the coast
Some heather, from the moor
A paper clip
A hair grip
A dark blue ribbon, and a lock of hair
A bookmark, embroidered, with love
A restaurant receipt, for two
A page torn from a diary, Feb 29
Where are you now?

jbbarret, all your poem needs is a title. I like it.

19 - It's a popular political commentary book, so it would be a little more expensive than most mass-market paperbacks, but most of it is just Australian pricing. Our books have always been expensive (an equivalent book today would cost about $30.

Reviving an old thread because I came across a photo in a 2nd hand book yesterday!



I bought it through an online store & not sure I'll be able to get it back to its owner :( Its not a brilliant shot, but who knows it could be special to someone & I'd like to get it back to them if possible! It looks like an interesting place that this group was meeting up, tho I haven't been able to decipher any of the headlines on the wall except for "Chiang Quits, Goes to Exile" & "Prohibition Era Ended, Loop Crowds Hail Repeal"...

One of my coworkers at the bookstore put a "family album" together, comprised of the pictures he found in the books! XD

I was covering some books for my library and realized the second hand copy of The Alchemist I had bought had "For sale in the Indian subcontinent only" on the cover. I gather it's been abroad for a while.