"The used book market is strange" Topic
11 Posts
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 John the OFM  | 09 Nov 2025 8:31 a.m. PST |
In light of recent unexpected gifts to me, I decided that I "needed" the Osprey book on the Austro Hungarian army of the SYW.
So, I checked Amazon, as one does. (Remember when all they sold was books? 🙄🤷)
Amazon wanted ~$83. But at least that qualifies for free shipping.
I then tried ABE Books. They wanted $5. USD With shipping 😱and Pennsylvania sales tax 😱 that came to $13. USD Hmmmm…. 🤔 What to do?
I won't say who I chose, but it arrives this week. |
| Andrew Walters | 09 Nov 2025 9:05 a.m. PST |
That's just market "imperfection". Haven't you ever been to a flea market and seen one guy asking $40 USD for a game and another guy a few tables down who wants $20 USD? The people who sell used books have some crazy pricing schemes, and it produces odd results. Don't forget to check B&N online, they often have deals. |
| TimePortal | 09 Nov 2025 9:12 a.m. PST |
Even though I have thousands of new books in storage , I stopped selling on Amazon. They wanted me to ship books to them for them to sell. The monthly storage fee was staggering. |
 20thmaine | 09 Nov 2025 9:48 a.m. PST |
IIRC there was a premium price for early Ospreys which had superior colour reproduction. Not sure if that is still a thing. |
 Sgt Slag | 09 Nov 2025 12:34 p.m. PST |
TSR, the company which published D&D, produced some low quality softcover game books, thin paper with severe bleed-through, in the 1990's. They originally sold for $15 USD/copy. Today, those crappy books sell for $100 USD-$200 per book, and they were sets of 3 & 4 book series! Complete sets sell for $300 USD-$500! I bought legal PDF copies, massaged away the security so that Lulu.com would print them for me in hardcovers, for $25 USD each ($20 for the POD hardcover + $5 USD for the PDF, delivered!). That is low quality everything; high quality everything runs around $40 USD-$50, delivered. The used book market is crazy when looking at niche books. I've POD'ed multiple PDF books already. Some only existed in softcover and others were just too pricey to buy OEM copies. Cheers! |
| 20thmaine | 09 Nov 2025 1:50 p.m. PST |
The RPG market is skewed by the collectors who want…everything. Old DF&D fanzines, photocopied and hand stapled together, go for £100.00 GBPs. It's a little bit crazy – but that's how collecting works. The prices will probably crash once no-one cares about D&D in the 1970s and 80s anymore. |
| The Last Conformist | 09 Nov 2025 11:20 p.m. PST |
Always check bookfinder.com when looking for used books. On the subject of the used books market being crazy, I just found that Biblio wants $55 USD for a used copy of a book that Amazon sells for about $30 USD new. |
| Martin Rapier | 10 Nov 2025 3:35 a.m. PST |
To echo the comments above, some online secondhand book prices are just crazy. I think either bots or chancers just put things up for silly prices and hope someone will bite. I guess that is the nature of capitalism and the internet. |
| John the OFM | 10 Nov 2025 6:24 a.m. PST |
Going back to Amazon choices, I found another one on sale for ~$103! And thanks for the bookfinder.com link. I'm sure to find it handy in the future.
Several listings at ~$15. |
| Sgt Slag | 10 Nov 2025 7:49 a.m. PST |
Beware of e-Bay… There are plenty of folks selling POD's from reputable sellers, at inflated prices! I regularly see POD's, sold as "new", which obviously came from DriveThruRPG.com, but the seller has inflated the price by $10 USD-$20 over the DTRPG prices… Buyer beware! The scary thing is that they move copies at these inflated prices: dutch auctions showing 5 copies sold, more copies still available. It always pays to shop around and compare prices. Cheers! |
| John the OFM | 10 Nov 2025 8:03 a.m. PST |
Way way way back…
I had subscribed to Panzerfaust magazine.
They had a campaign game for the AWI southern theater.
It entailed gluing the map to cardboard, gluing the counters to cardboard and slicing or cutting them away. Just to "clean out the basement", and I was getting rid of a lot of stuff, I put it on eBay, asking $20. USD
It started a bidding war between 3 people. One soon dropped out. But the two remaining bidders jacked up the price to around $85. USD 🤷 Can't blame me for the final price! 😄👍 To be honest, I wish I had hung on to it, since my AWI miniatures collection expanded exponentially. I could have used it.
But, I was "cleaning out the basement", and put the cash to good use.
These days, I'd probably have to file a 1099. |
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