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

Forgotten in my trunk for a year. What's in the bag?

Whats in the bag!? Two posts in two days!?

 

     Left for dead in the trunk, a lot of things were rattling around back there when I've been driving to work for my new job. I decided today would be the day I clean out the car and get it looking nice. Washed, waxed and vacuumed, I tackled the trunk. Still full of random brick-a-brack from my last job and the recent move, I filled a huge trash can in no time, when I saw a goodwill bag in the back. The last time I went to goodwill for books was over a year ago, so this was indeed buried treasure. 

Behold! Random crusty books!

     Lots of Feist and Brooks.. maybe I was trying to save them from the dumpster. Everything had been baked by my trunk for a hot minute and had deteriorated in quality over the last year, tumbling around and shaking loose any still or loose bits of paper. I was interested in The Dosadi Experiment, but it looked like experiments had been performed on it already. Check out the condition of this early printing Sword of Shannara..

     Still readable, just seen some oil spillage, a full beatdown, and spent some time in the gulag that was my trunk for over a year. My wife will most likely read this so I will state that yes, I will be keeping this book, it's family now. Just need some more bookcases and my hostile takeover of the house will be complete.

Until next time bibliophiles..

$25 Fill a Bag - Small Business Saturday

Here is my bag. I filled it. Dog for scale.

     I find myself back again at the Paperback Exchange Book Store in New Port Richey. It's their fault I'm back, they told me it would $25 fill a bag, and they provide the bag. Nice canvas one too, with pockets. There were a few rules:

1. No "Rare" books. You know because it says rare on the price sticker.
2. Has to be at least 3 years old
3. Can't have the "No Credit" sticker on it
4. Has to be over 25 books as all white sticker books are $1 each all day
5. Rare books are BOGO

   In total I put 64 books in my bag that qualified. I could have fit at least 10-15 more in there easily, but I didn't want to take advantage. Some of the books I had in the bag had a sticker on them for over $15, so I felt like those few books alone, the value was more than met. The mathematician in me says it was right around .40 cents a book, which is right around Yard Sale pricing... my favorite! 

Some really cool old pulp short story mags from the 60's and 70's. There was TONS more of these, but they were from the 80's un through the 90's.

     Random selection of old paperbacks in varying conditions. Some beat up Zelazny to spice it up.

     Lot of crusty and decent condition Heinlein. The Starman Jones really caught my eye. Not in the best shape, but have never seen it in the wild before. Around this time the owner handed me an Asimov 60's BCE hardcover that I already had and passed on.

    Some really not bad examples of early Asimov, with the End of Eternity the standout. There were about 10 mixed Sci-Fi short story collection books edited by him that I picked up as well.

     Some nice old Lazer PB's, Neuromancer, and a lot of random stuff that I have but I know has a little bit of value. Couldn't pass on the ACE double, even though it is already in my collection. 

That's it! Stay tuned for more book adventures.

Paper Back Exchange Pickups & Blog Update

 

     I've recently moved again within Florida, (which I'll explain later on in the "Blog Update" portion of this post), and today I find myself in North Tampa in New Port Richey at The Paperback Exchange Bookstore. Great little store with both used and new books, an exchange and accounts membership, and a huge selection of everything that I like to see when going to used book stores. 

    I love little narrow aisles with nine foot tall shelves full of fantasy and science fiction. I love the old stuff, and there was no shortage of it here. The owner Joanie let me know she was in the middle of overhauling the section, so there was boxes piled up in about the last 20% of the section I was in. Not a problem at all. Right away I could see that there was two kinds of books, those that are marked with a regular price which was about $3-$4 on average, and those marked "Rare" that were $5-$10 on average. Anything that I was interested in, or was from the 80's and back was marked as rare weather it was or not. It looks like about 5 years ago, Joanie went through the thousands of books and checked them quickly on ebay, and took their average listed price on there and that is what she is charging. I don't have an issue with this, the prices are stated clearly, and she was up front about the trade-in and membership values from the very start.

     If these were $1 books from the flea market, I would be filling up shopping carts. I would get excited about seeing something pretty awesome, then turn it around to find out it was $15 or more. I would look it up on ebay right there, and sure enough, that was a somewhat accurate ebay sold value. While looking online and taking my time checking things out, Joanie let me know that it was $25 Fill-a-bag sales on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday next week coming up on everything I was looking at. Fill a bag! I will 100% be back here to get some of these great old pulp trade paperbacks.

    Right before I left, I saw a few more sections of books, 1/2 off the whole area, and all hard backs and magazines. I didn't see any crazy value items, but some old 1984 mags and 70's BCE hard backs were a really good value. 

    I ended up only buying one book to get my name in the system to qualify for the upcoming sale. Being a paperback exchange, I'm going to put some books together I don't want so I can get some credit started. Conan the Conqueror #5 for $5? That's quite the deal, and anything Conan is super hard to find these days. She had some other Conan stuff, but was priced kind of high for the deals that I look for. I messaged my buddy @ Collectible Science Fiction and let him know the deals to be had and shot him some pictures. No k.Dick or s.Lem so I didn't think he would need anything, but was just trying to be a bro.

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Life update! 

I saw this mix tape for sale the same day I went to the book store and thought it was appropriate.

     I guess I should catch everyone up on what's going on with me. This may take a second, so let's just use bullet points and explain the timeline.

• I moved in December 2017 from our home in Cape Coral leaving behind our forever home, and my custom made bookcases. We rented the house, and eventually sold it 2 years later. This would be the last time I made a post to the blog because of all the chaos. I started a new job, quit that job, started another which transferred me to the other side of the state. Left without options, I moved.
• We moved to West Palm Beach in  2017/18 and I started my new job there with a new title in a place I was not familiar. We were renting, and the price of housing was crazy, so we couldn't get something with another room for a library.
• December 2018 moved again to another place in West Palm. Still no office or Library. Before I moved, I sold about 75 books to the great dude over at Collectible Science Fiction, and he paid me a fair amount. Yes, I still have 99% of my collection and I did not sell anything super valuable with the exception of my Dune first edition paperbacks, which we traded in kind of a first edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep 1st/1st.
• December 2019 moved yet again! No library and have not been buying or looking at my packed up book collection for about 2 1/2 years now. We lived here until 2021.
• January 2021 moved AGAIN to another place in West Palm. Horrible housing market made it so expensive to get something bigger, even with my decent wage and living situation. No Office/Library.
• Moved AGAIN in November 2021 to my current residence in Tampa Florida.. after the previous landlord sold from under us, and my company sold at the same time. However this time, I have an office/library to store and display my books! I'm down to two active bookcases, but I'm going to get two more soon. After 4 long years, the marathon is over.

     I have 26 large packing boxes full of books in various closets, and I went to my first Goodwill in Oldsmar and bought a bag of cool books just last week. It feels so good to be settled and away from West Palm with a great job where I won't have to move, in a nice area with a larger home again. My hobby is not something where you can do it with a very limited amount of space, and always moving, I didn't want to unpack everything just to have to start over again in a few week. In the next post I will show you the state of my current library, and any new finds in the new area I reside. I moved 5 times in 4 years. Never again!

Living Room Book Case Update

     Not sure If anyone remembers my book case, hand made from oak keg pallets from Miller Brewing Company, my previous employer. (Link for the curious on how it was made.) Well here is a quick update on the books that have found their way in there over the last few years.

Book case dimensions: 15.5 feet long by 8.35 feet high by 18 inch depth. Holds 3 rows of paperbacks per shelf, or two hardbacks. 36 books per row, 3 deep, with some stacked on top and piled in front. Runs the whole length of my living room, end to end. The TV pictured is 70 inches, for scale.