Adventures at The Goodwill Book Store

     I've been to this particular Goodwill book store before, when I started noticing them popping up all over the place, and the books disappearing out of the normal Goodwill thrift stores. Prices, meh. Selection? Pretty damn good actually, and since the last time I visited, drastically improved.

 

      They added a cool little reading room where all the furniture, lamps, and so on, are for sale. DVD's and Blu-Rays were also added, and they offer a pretty good selection considering everything is donated.

 

     
      The most exciting part for me was the addition of a vintage book area in the back of the store with pretty reasonable prices. Lots of Eaton Press books, history books, you name it.

     Not bad at all. Anything with a white sticker was half off, so even better! I did see some stuff that I would love to own, but passed on most of it. I have a budget of $10.00 after all.

     Just one of the many cool books I passed on. "The Arabian Nights" from the early 20's. Strange super detailed pictures throughout.

    This is what I ended up getting after all the cool stuff I saw. Two Ray Bradbury books that were .99 cents each (half off on top of that), a 9th printing "Grapes of Wrath" from 1940's-ish era, "Moon of the Three Rings" by Norton, and a super old paperback called "Flatland" by Abbott. It's a science fiction book written in the late 1800's, and this is a reprint from the early 1920's. I could not find another one like it on Ebay, Google, or the like, so have no idea on it's value.

 

 

     Here are some better pictures of the books I picked up. "The Grapes of Wrath" goes for about $100 even with the dust jacket missing, and I paid $3.99. "Moon of Three Rings" in the worst condition possible, averages around $40.00, and I paid $1.99. Overall, not a bad day! Ill do some more research on "Flatland" and try and find a value and update this post later... anyone have any predictions?

 

Another mystery box in the mail!

 

 

     My step father, Brian, sent me a wonderful mystery box full of books and other oddities. He did not tell me what books would be in the box, only that they came from his personal collection.

 

     Batman: The Animated Series toys for my son.. he is really in to Batman right now. Not shown: Lots more toys, a hat, and more toys.

     Eighteen books total, all great books, and most of them I don't currently own. The three hard covers: Imperial Earth, The White Plague and Dayworld are all first editions. The Moorecock paperbacks are all original Daw first editions, and near mint. The Conan reprints are all books I'm missing, and always on the lookout for. Thanks Brian for the great additions to my collection! They won't be going anywhere!

 

 

     It's no secret that Dayworld is one of my favorite books, and I have never owned it in hard cover. I was so excited to see this laying on top of the pile. If you ever need a suggestion for a great book to lose yourself in, look no further guys.

 

Church Book Sale Finds

     I've been seeing signs for the bi-annual church book sale for about a month now. Having found some good stuff here years ago, I made a plan to actually do some book hunting. Twice a year for five hours.. five short hours to get in and get out. I got there when the doors opened at eight AM, turned around, and took the picture above.

     After ten minutes inside the building, It was shoulder to shoulder with old people. I noticed some people brought their own canvas bags, garbage bags and empty boxes, and I brought nothing with me. I went out to the car quickly and found an old gift bag in the trunk I could fill up. Yeah, I looked like a moron, but I was also the youngest by 60 years which made me feel a little better.

     There was zero organization, I had to go through every box, cart and table and quickly browse titles as fast as I could recognize them. Getting shoved around and bumped in to, I felt cramped and a little anxious, So I skipped about a four or five tables at the end. Christian book sales don't yield too much in the way of Science Fiction and Fantasy, but with this amount of books, I was bound to find a few gems.

   
My gift bag with a few books in it. The price was right, at ten for a dollar, but I really did not see too much that I did not have or want. No good doubles, nothing. Tons of Bibles.

     I don't know if you can see these well or not, but you can click to zoom. The two book box set is a 1965 Alice in Wonderland, worth around $30-40. I've seen older, but a nice little find. The H.M.S. Bounty is a second printing and worth around $20. The 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: Odyssey Two are both first editions, and in great shape. 2001 goes for about $100 any day of the week and 2010 about $30. The other four books don't really have too much value, but I didn't have them, and thought it was worth picking up. The first edition Macdonald paperback is for a friend that collects them, and I see them pretty frequently. All in all, a pretty good day! I hit some garage sales later on with no luck.