Awesome finds

Wondering what peoples most exciting finds are. Today I bought a copy of American Demagogues at my local Savers thrift store for $1.99 only to find Rev. Peter Gomes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Gomes) name written within, AND a first edition, second state of James and the Giant Peach, albeit in fair condition, also for $1.99. Nice day!

I was at the friends of the library book sale in Mammoth Lakes, Ca, a tiny ski town in the middle of the eastern sierra nowhere. Usually the pickings are slim - Clancy, Grisham and worse. Anyway, I found a first British edition of Mani by Patrick Fermor for 5$. I snatched it up and wondered what they were acquiring that could be a tenth as good a book.

@ nemoman - a twelfth copy of Fifty Shades of Grey, probably.

LOL.

A copy of Augustine Birrell's Res Judicatæ inscribed to Teddy Roosevelt's son, Kermit Roosevelt.

I've made a few good finds lately (well, you may not all agree). Most recently I found hardcover first editions of the first 5 Jean Auel books except for Valley of the Horses - all at Goodwill for $2.50 each. The week before I picked up a hardcover copy of Drood by Dan Simmons and A Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling and a couple of weeks ago found an HC first edition of The Passage by Justin Cronin. The best find was sometime last year - found a HC first of The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum at an estate sale for a buck - clipped jacket but otherwise a VG copy.

I once found a copy of Historical Scripts: A Handbook for Calligraphers for about $20 at a used bookstore. It usually goes for upwards of $60. The guy behind the counter grumbled when he saw how it was priced, but he honored it.

3> I have seen several copies of that book be ILLed by patrons at the library where I volunteer. As often as not, the patron lets their hold expire, and the book gets sent back. I always wonder if it's because the patron found they couldn't hand the book to a checkout-desk librarian and look them in the eye at the same time...

3, 7> My librarian inspects my ILL books as I stand there and - "Oooh! How interesting! You always request such interesting things. You'll have to tell me about ..." Um. No. Please don't.

There used to be a small bookstore in La Jolla that carried both used books and a carefully selected number of new books. While browsing there one day, I found a signed first edition of Beyond The Wall by Edward Abbey. The book was new, although it had been sitting there for some ten years. I paid the ridiculously low price on the inside of the dustcover - what it went for new.

Most of my finds over the past couple of years have come while scouting for my used bookstore. Every once in a while I'll find something that I figure I have only a slim chance of selling but a 100% chance of enjoying in my home library, so I keep it, though I try to keep these incidents down to a minimum. Recently during one such expedition I found a copy of The Reds of the Midi: an episode of the French Revolution published by Appleton in 1896. Nothing too breathtaking but cool to find a translation of a book originally written in Provencal. Only four copies of it listed on LT, including mine.

Sometimes my "finds" come at the bottom of boxes of books brought to my store by customers for store credit. I try to offer a commensurate amount of store credit for valuable books. However, occasionally someone will just want to donate books. About a year ago a man showed up at the store with six or seven boxes of books he just wanted to give me. Didn't want cash, didn't want store credit. Just wanted to be rid of the books, which had been in his recently deceased mother's house. I practically had to force him to take one book away with him before he sped off. At the bottom of one of those books were several Franklin Library signed first editions. A signed Tom Wolfe, a signed Day of the Jackal. Those were cool but they went on the shelf at the store. The signed The Death of Methuselah by Isaac Singer came home with me.

Recently obtained the 3 volume, 1946 Houghton Mifflin - Riverside Press edition of 'U.S.A.' by John Dos Passos. All the jackets in very good condition for the unbelievable price of $20 on ebay. Also a first Covici-Friede 1936 edition of Steinbeck's 'Dubious Battle' in very good condition for $57. The deals are out there, but they don't come easy or often.

Some years ago, I found in a local used book store a copy of the first edition of Ian Fleming's The Man With the Golden Gun, fine in fine d/j for the outrageous price of .... $2.50. Still smile over that one.

That is an amazing find!

Some years ago, I was assisting the local chapter of AAUW (American Association of University Women) set up for their annual used book sale. I was allowed to pick any book from the donations in exchange for my help. I found something I could not possibly pass by: A copy of the first edition of Prescott's History of the conquest of Peru (NY: Harper, 1847, 2 vols) in pretty good shape.

Came back the next day with my wife after they had opened and purchased a set (8 vols) of David Hume's History of England (London: T. Cadell, 1778) in excellent condition in full contemporary full calf for $17.50. Still can't believe that one.

These sales are the best sometimes for finding treasures at unbelievable prices. Congratulations on your amazing finds!
I have been lucky a few times, too. Just need to think about specific examples...

I went to a book sale at a research library today and found a 1995 edition of The Library of Ferdinand Columbus for $1. I recently took a bookbinding class and snagged it not for content but because of the vellum binding. It’s not perfect. Someone has cut off the ribbons once used to tie it closed and the slipcase is missing. It also has a small amount of sticker residue. This is one of the run of 300 presentation copies printed. There’s one like it on eBay for a ridiculous sum of money in better condition than mine. The ones on Abe and other usual sources aren’t the same version. My question is did I do good? What’s a legitimate value? How do I clean and protect. It? I’ve never had vellum before. My book piles are suggesting I should be looking into an insurance rider if I keep acquiring. Pics to follow if they will cooperate.

>16 varielle:
I think that you did great!
$1 for this book? Fantastic deal, especially if it does not have any bad odors, such as tobacco smoke or mildew. Congratulations!!
It is difficult to estimate a true value of this book, as prices mostly depend of demand. One can have an extremely rare book and price it very very high, but if nobody wants it, the sticker price would not be an indicator of book's value.
From what I read about velum, it is a very durable material, but it easily absorbs and retains moisture; therefore, it could be prone to cockling.
Unless you really feel you need to clean it, the best policy would be to leave it alone.
There is a Book Care and Repair group on the LibraryThing, and they might know more about cleaning velum.

I think you got a great deal. If you plan on re-selling it, maybe setting the auction at 3/4 the price of the one you found in better condition?

>17 booksforreading: I followed that groups advice and used a Mr. Clean eraser to get the dirt off. I’ve ordered some of the British museum’s leather book dressing to help protect it. Although the pages are good the edges are filthy and I’m not sure what to do about that. Smells ok considering it’s survived many floods and hurricanes here. >18 mstrust: I probably won’t sell unless times get hard.

>19 varielle: "Although the pages are good the edges are filthy and I’m not sure what to do about that."

That's rather tricky. Are the edges trimmed smooth or left rough with deckle? If the former, one can put it in a press, tighten it up and clean with an eraser. If the latter, there's not much that can be done short of taking the book apart and cleaning each sheet then re-assembling it. That's expensive and should be done by a professional binder/conservationist. Even then, if the soiling is severe, it might have to be trimmed slightly to remove the soiled parts before re-binding. Consequently, you may have to live with the dirty edges.

>20 Glacierman: Unfortunately, they are deckled. :( I will likely need to take it to a pro. Even a 1/8" trim would get rid of most of it. Considering it's been through many hurricanes and floods I suppose it's not too bad.

>21 varielle: If a 1/8" trim would take care of it, then your binder should be able to accomplish that w/o having to dismantle the book. I hope that would leave some deckle untouched which would be preferred to having a smoothly trimmed edge as you would loose much of the character of the book otherwise.

I comb through the notes and bibliographies of any non-fiction book I am reading and make lists of follow-up books and articles, frequently buying one or two immediately and putting others on the to buy / locate list. Of course, this strategy leads me in new directions, which is part of the point.

Here is an excellent example: In the end notes of Robert F. Gish’s fine biography of New Mexico-born novelist Harvey Fergusson, Frontier’s End: The Life and Literature of Harvey Fergusson, there is a reference to Men Who Matched the Mountains: The Forest Service in the Southwest, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1972. Well this sounded interesting. So I poked around, and found a beautiful dust-jacketed copy signed by one of the authors, George Fitzpatrick, at an extremely reasonable price. Snapped it right up. And now that I have it and am reading it, it is indeed very interesting!

Although I haven’t the money to be a real book collector, I am always happy to own interesting things. Perhaps it is just as well that I have to buy online now, instead of having access to used bookshops, because the problem with those is that my interests have broadened to the extent that I want to at least look at everything in the shop, and then desire to buy way too much.

>23 PatrickMurtha:
I do exactly the same when reading non-fiction. Any mention of books I don't know gets my attention and follow-up research.

>24 booksforreading: I am surprised that more people don’t do this, as the notes and bibliographies are there for good reason. When I can tell that especial pains have been taken over them, I am always delighted. For example, the annotated bibliography to Lewis Mumford’s The City in History is spectacular, and could keep you going for years.

Here is an interesting case. There was a post on popular novelist Richard Jessup’s 1961 paperback original Port Angelique at the Mystery*File blog, and it was noted that there appeared to be only one copy on the market. Dirt-cheap, too, so I bought it immediately.

https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=84319

Now this is one that I will NOT have re-bound, even though half the spine is missing, because it seems to be a true rarity. The front and back covers are fine, and the pages are clean and fairly tight.

>25 PatrickMurtha: Reading the bibliography can indeed pay off, in many ways. In one particular instance, during my research into the history of C. E. Conrad, founder of Kalispell, MT, I was trying to discover what the native name of his first wife was (she was a member of the Blood/Kainai tribe in Canada), but all I could find was the Englished version of what she was called by other tribes.

I was looking everywhere and eventually I read several books on the fur trade in Montana and in so doing, became quite familiar with Fort Benton and Alexander Culbertson. In one book on those topics (I forget which), I came across a reference in the bibliography to another book on Culbertson I was unfamiliar with. I tracked it down and bought a copy off the 'net. In reading the text, I found a footnote that told me two things: Conrad's wife's name in the Kainai language AND the name of the man who gave it to the author whom I eventually contacted.

So, a bibliography led to a book which led to a footnote which gave me the name and led me to another researcher for further discussion on the subject.

Bibliographies rock!

>27 Glacierman: Great story!

Here is the book I mentioned above. It is the second entry in the list.

I was at my local thrift store and was found Mount Vernon: A Love Story of George and Martha Washington by Mary Higgins Clark and Tricky Twenty-Two by Janet Evanovich for $1.50 each. Bonus - they were both autographed! Always so very cool to find signed books, especially on clearance! Happy treasure hunting from Grapevine, Texas! :)