How to Sell a First Edition

I was in a thrift store about a year and a half ago scouring the back shelves for saleable books when this hipster girl started looking over my shoulder at the hardcovers. She wasn't a dealer so I let her in over my head to snag what I thought was a Joyce Carol Oats novel. Only when I was at the counter making my final purchase did I realize what book she'd filched: a hardcover, first edition copy of And the Ass Saw the Angel, by Nick Cave, which retails online for a cool $50, if not more. Snaked by an amateur! I was horrified.



So imagine my surprise at this yard sale in Pilsen today when I find a hardcover, first edition copy of And the Ass Saw the Angel. I am redeemed! What a score -- for just two dollars.

Then I get home and look it up on Amazon, only to see copies of it are now selling for less than 10 dollars. In my angst, I quickly put the book up for eBay auction starting at $9.99 with no reserve. That's how to sell a first edition: put it on eBay. Since the eBay audience in a little different from the discerning rare book customer base, you can still get slightly more than what the book is worth. I predict a bidding frenzy! Until I go back and double check those prices on Amazon, only to realize those 10-dollar copies aren't first editions, and most first editions start at 35 dollars. Ah! So now I've got this expensive book up for bids starting at ten dollars. Let's hope some Nick Cave fans sniff it out and start a bidding war over it.

You can watch that bidding war here.

It was a scorcher today, too. A friendly gay couple with lots of trance CDs for sale put this sign up in front to entice would-be shoppers:



We ran into Adrienne at a Wicker Park sale around the corner from her apartment. She put her granny cart in my trunk and got a ride home after buying a large CD rack for 5 dollars. Score!



The sales were full of odd dolls today for some reason. Let me just say, I've seen some pretty graphic Barbie orgies at garage sales. Why is it that when people want to sell the Mattel princess, they have to pile her naked, altogether, in the most compromising positions? I will take more of these photos to illustrate my point, but here is the first of what I predict to be many:



Then there was this little guy, who seemed to be having a breathing problem, but was making the best of it:



Anyone need a Country Crock Dinner display freezer? I mean, this is one I've definitely never seen:





After Ed went through this entire stack of records in 95-degree heat, only to find they were in horrible condition, he pretty much wanted to crawl in the Country Crock freezer. Better luck next week!




Click here to see my biggest score of the day, purchased for just 50 cents!