Bookfinder.com Report 2010: Several Books I Have Sold From the List

My first post from outside of the home office, I write this to you from a bookstore in San Francisco, where it has been raining on my girlfriend and I for the past two days.  Despite the wet conditions, we have managed to do a pretty fair job of exploring the city on two feet (with one umbrella) and I finally mustered the courage to figure out the bus system, which is actually quite easy in conjunction with Google Maps and the local NextMuni website.  I don't know how my parents traveled around in a foreign lands for so many years without a smart phone.  I have been relying on GPS on the road for book scouting missions for so long now that I felt entirely lost without it as soon as we stepped out of our hotel.

San Francisco seems like a great place for bibliophiles (and foodies!).  William Stout Architectural Books absolutely overwhelmed me and made me green with envy.  I wanted just about everything in that store, but settled for a reference volume on Photo Books.  Tarah and I were both oohing and aahing over a book she found on the shelves entitled Exceptional Treehouses.  The basement had a wonderful selection of Graphic Design books, with a shelf specifically on book design.  They also had in stock nearly every single book mentioned in the reference volume I mentioned in a previous post: http://www.kristianstrom.com/2010/10/very-specific-flashpoint-vintage.html       

This morning we ate a delicious brunch at Ella's in Presidio Heights and then took a bus through Haight-Ashbury to Golden Gate Park, where there was a book fair in progress (thanks to a chance reading of a post on the IOBA Forum by Chris Volk at BookFever- thanks Chris) .  I got the chance to meet a few local dealers, and made a modest purchase of a signed Chip Kidd book from Noemi at OpCit, along with a reading copy of his Book One: Work: 1986-2006 (Bk. 1). 

Enough of the travelogue, let's get to the point of this post:

After an initial study of the 2010 Bookfinder.com Report of the 100 Most Sought After Out-of-Print Books of the Year, I have put together a short list of several titles I come across quite often, along with several that I will be on the lookout for from now on, including one that weighs in at over $1,000.  Click on the title to view images of the books on Amazon.

3 titles that I have sold several copies of:

1.  The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt: last sold in June 2009 for $125, prices of this out-of-print knitting classic have continued to rise since then.  I am due to find my next copy any day now.

2.  Hell, I Was There by Elmer Keith.  This title includes several of my favorite flashpoints: Big Game Hunting, Guns, Cowboys and Ranching.  I have routinely sold copies in the $75-100 range.
3.  I Go Pogo by Walt Kelly.  I come across books in Kelly's "Pogo" comic strip series all the time, and they are always a sure sale at $25 and up.  Look for them in paperback, and place a premium on condition.

3 books that I will now surely be on the lookout for:

1.  Holy smokes!  Keep a keen eye out for Ferdinand Pecora's Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of Our Modern Money Changers.  Apparently this falls under the category of scarce out-of-print business and investing books with a cult following of customers with deep pockets.

2.  The Lovely Reed: An Enthusiast's Guide to Building Bamboo Fly Rods by Jack Howell



3.  Just in time for Halloween: In A Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting by Ray Garton.  An appropriate selection for this time of year.  An out-of-print and still sought after account of the supernatural, available in Hardcover and Mass Market Paperback, most likely in the Horror or True Crime section.  On a related note, I have sold several MMPB copies of Gerald Brittle's The Devil in Connecticut in the $25 range.  As of this writing, several "new" copies have been discovered by a bookseller in California.  Someone interested in arbitrage may be wise to inquire as to the quantity available, purchase the lot, and re-list them at a premium on Amazon and Ebay(around $100 apiece I'm thinking, with a slight financial risk involved of course).  The sellers' description also includes a nice summary of what makes this particular book desirable.

Here is one final book I've come across plenty of times which is, unfortunately, coming back in print next May.  Copies of the older editions still fetch three figures, although they may sit on your shelves for a bit longer after it is reissued, so pick up or sell your existing copies while you can.