Neighborhood Garage Sale Finds - H.P. Lovecraft & More

      

     Well look what we have here, a community-wide garage sale! I have been seeing the signs in the adjoining neighborhood for weeks, and today was finally the day. I somehow managed to get my teenaged son out of the bed to come with me, which was welcome indeed. It was on of those events where there were so many cars, you kind of had to park somewhere on the street and plot your destination. If I had to guess, I would say there was over 50 garage/yard sales total. As you can see from the above pictures, I did find a bag of books for 50 cents each! I spotted a bunch of very bad condition fantasy 80's novels in a box, and just keep looking around. My son was finding win-after-win and I was empty handed right up until the end. The picture on the left is the actual sale, and that's me on the right walking back to the car with the loot. Don't mind the wrist brace.

The garage sale loot.

     

     When I saw the HP Lovecraft book, I knew I was in the right place. A few other little gems and some unknowns caught my eye right away and I knew for 50 cents each, I could not go wrong. Most notably the two Lovecraft books, Charnel house, and Heart of Darkness all have eBay sold listings for well over $20 each recently.

All the books had that white tag with the price on them.

     Really great covers, especially on the early Burroughs trade paperback. I have not been going to many garage sales lately because of the price of gas, and the amount of garbage you have to sift through to find anything. Back in the early days of the blog I use to live off of Mcgregor Blvd in Fort Myers, by the Edison Home and Ford Estates. Very high end area, and their yard and garage sales are licensed with the city in that area. Not sure why, but there was always something good to find. Maybe one person paid to have their garage sale licensed and all the neighbors brought something over to sell? The cost of the houses? Rich people do throw away cool shit. 

Anyways. Thanks for reading. 

Quick visit to Wilson's Book World

Wilson's Book World - St. Pete (Website)

     I was recently in St. Petersburg for a work event, and had to quickly leave to go back to the office, when I passed Wilson's Book World. I nearly drove right past it; it came up on me so fast. I drive a medium sized pickup, and their parking lot was so small and hard to navigate, I did not think I was going to have room to park, but I just barely made it. leaving, it took me 4 attempts to clear the side of the building, and multiple tries to turn back on to the road. This building looks like its in multiple different levels or rooms, but I don't think it is. Someone may live above/behind it in the attached building? Not sure.

Half of the Science Fiction section.

Half of the Fantasy Section

One shelf of around half of the Vintage Sci-fi

     Walking in, I was greeted by a very cheerful person working the counter behind a plastic sheet. Super friendly and offered help right away. Some regulars were walking around shopping which was nice to see in a post-pandemic world. An old man walked in when I did to return some books he bought previously, and was called out for bringing in books that were not purchased there, and hoooo boy did she handle it quickly. Never even let him get a breath, just said no, this is what I can do and goodbye. No, "The customer is always right" bullshit here! 

     Prices were medium-high ebay average in good condition. Every book has a stamp in it with a pencil written value; almost always $3 on the regular books. Vintage were about $7 and up.. this place knows what it has in inventory and will not be had by someone like me. Condition does not seem to matter, all prices were ebay medium/high sold auction value even if the cover was just barely on there. The stamp itself really affects the condition, and in used book stores that do this, I kind of expect a little lighter on the prices. I really wanted those ace doubles, it's super hard to find them, especially in this frequency, but again with the condition and stamping. I love the organization and, commitment to the alpha system, and even keeping the series books together by number is a super welcome and refreshing thing to see in any book store, something you don't even see at Barnes & Noble. I asked if she had some Dungeons and Dragons modules, and she had several in the "Antiquities and Rare" section for $60 each which was VERY extreme. The box sets themselves the books came from, for example, Menzoberrazan Forgotten Realms- goes for $100 in perfect shape. $60? No way. $20 on a good day. A quick peek around and I confirmed some of my fears.. some things were a little overpriced. I did find a few little gems:

Star Gate by Andre Norton, 1958 pulp edition in fair condition

Riverworld 5 book Boxed Set in fair condition

    No stamp in either one, just some light pencil. Star Gate was marked $9 and Riverworld box was marked $15.95. Strangely, when I checked out, she only charged me a flat $20 for both items which was super nice of her. I can't find anything on the Riverworld Boxed Set, which leads me to believe it was somewhat rare. I see the books contained inside for sale on ebay for $35, but no shell. The Star Gate I have in other editions, and goes for exactly the same as marked.. around $9. I spent a little more than I would normally but I did not want to leave empty handed from a family owned business. I hate to be so critical in my quick review, and reading this back, it just really seems like I hated it. It was a nice little store, if you need something to complete a set, I would highly recommend going here to get that done as they have so many hard to find items. If you can wait a few days you can get it on ebay. I did not have much time, but I bet with enough patience you could find some good deals.

See you next time.

Double-Trouble - Pickups from two different Florida bookstores

A Novel Idea Bookstore - Ocala Florida

     It's close to my birthday, and I had to travel a lot this week, so I hit some old favorites of mine in Fort Myers and Ocala. The Book Rack in Fort Myers is still owned by the same person, and I have posted about the store several other times in this blog. Its great for a twice a year stop in to see if any of the inventory has changed over. The other store I visited is A Novel Idea in Ocala, which I had been in once before, but there was really nothing in my price range. Their cheapest books are $2-$4 on average. I did find some gems however. They had an orange cat at checkout in a box of books, which is very good luck and much appreciated. Anyways, back to the Book Rack.

   Well friends, she finally got wise to reseller and collector antics. There was a ton of new stuff in the store, but everything that was worth anything is now on a huge table behind the owner at the front, and to the side priced for eBay sale. Anything over an eBay sold value of $4 has been deemed as "Rare" and removed to be put on eBay. She did allow me to look behind the counter, but warned me it's prices as marked. There was two large wire racks in the middle of the sci-fi fantasy section just covered with Book Club Edition's for days. A lot of stuff I did not have, and all in good condition, but each one is marked with sharpie in the front cover insert as for sale for $8 each. The actual value of these books are around $5 each on eBay, so I think she is looking at listed values and not sold auctions. Either way, I caught her slipping on a Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe and a stack of Zelazny for $1 each on the very bottom shelf mixed in with some Shatner Tek War. I did notice if it was on the bottom shelf, it appeared to be priced years ago and untouched. It's also worth noting, any of the Timescape books are going for big money and I have no idea why.

The haul from both locations

     Left stack is from the Book Rack, right stack is from Novel Idea. Some really great old pulpy sci-fi, and some great covers from Novel Idea, and they had some more stuff that I wanted. I broke the bank at $31, which is MUCH more than I would normally pay. $2 is the minimum price for a book there as mentioned previously. When I found The Black Horde by Lewis, I didn't feel bad spending the money, as I have one other copy and I knew it was worth $30+. The Origin of the Crabs really stood out for me, so got that as well and was pleasantly surprised of its value. The rest of the books I did not have, or had in a different edition so grabbed them on merit knowing I'm going to make my money back on the one book alone. Full transparency, I sell the doubles of books I find in the wild, and keep the better edition for myself to fund more book buying down the line. I also pick up books for fellow collectors, but I'm horrible about getting back to them and looking through mountains of storage for what they need. I spent just under $50 on this trip, got some stuff I wanted, and two books to sell to get that money back. Some cover shots below:

Artax the Book Cat paying the Cat Tax

     Speaking of Cat Tax, Bastian the original book cat pictured in tons of my posts and in the margin to your right, died in February of old age at 18 years old. My wife and I got him at a yard sale in Lehigh Acres Florida, covered in fleas and had worms along with his sister Chloe. We had them both until they were 18 years old, and he still sat and watched me read and toppled over my stacks of books from time-to-time. So RIP Bastian, you will be missed. 

RIP Bastian - 2004-2022