Your first valuable "find."

[katiethebooklady]

What was your 1st REALLY $$$$ book find? My first one was this morning. After all these years, I knew it was bound to happen but Yikes!   Now what?  I bet there's so many great stories out there, as well as a few cautionary tales.  We'll all learn.  Any advice from the community would be much appreciated.  Thanks. 

[zippyused]

No sorry I can't....this was way back 15 years ago. But I remember how much it brought!

[chrispass918]

I didn't read the title correctly, but I think my very first valuable find was a complete hardcover Viking dark tower set I got for $26 and I sold it for $260. I got Carrie first edition with no dust jacket for $19, it sells for $300-$350 with out the dust jacket. 
2!!! first edition salems lot without the dust jacket for $49, I sold one of them for $460 and the complete stranger bought another one of my items before hand and we've been in contact since and he gave me the dust jacket for salems lot for 100% free he didn't even make me pay the $1 it cost to ship it and now it's worth like $2000 (he rebinds books so he didn't need the dust jacket) 
I got a first edition shining with the dust jacket for $85 and it's worth $1000-$1500

i got a first edition night shift for $15 and the price with the dust jacket was clipped but it was still worth $650, but later on I found a dust jacket for $250 and now it's worth $1500-$2000 (only 12,000 were printed) 

a first edition the stand without the dust jacket for $25 and I found a dust jacket later on for $75 and it's worth like $300. 
2 wizard and glasses in a lot for $39 (nearly a month apart) and I sold one for $120, both of them had loose bindings and the one I kept is in like new condition (except for the binding) the pages are super clean.

a first edition wastelands for $25 (it's worth $150). I've built my entire collection through eBay, it's definitely my proudest achievement. 

[taylor_memorial]

Told the story here a number of times, but here goes. 

The very first was in a box of junk my SIL bought with his first house: in the attic of a garage along with a bunch of other stuff: the Red Rider rifle that was in Christmas Story, a busted up doll. Some worthless 1930's Mark Twain's. 

It was an 1890's little Jehovah's Witness tract of about 4 pages.  At the time, the woman who was my wife wanted to help him out by selling some of the stuff he didn't want on eBay. This was before pictures were required, even before pictures were possible. Auction. I didn't expect much, but it sold for $180 to a guy in Canada who sent 4 crisp $50 bills. Through the mail. Told me to keep the change. 
 
I bought a short stack of old Sci-fi pulps. There was a recased Amazing Annual #1 in it. A couple others. $10 at auction for the stack. The Amazing Annual was the ONLY annual they ever did and had the first appearance of a Burroughs Mars story. Best color ever because of the protection the recasing offered.  Took me a while but I shipped it to Finland with for $600 and the difference between media mail and international. Just sold the last of the pulps (Unknown Worlds) for $20 which was a nice profit on the whole stack. 

Found a late 18th century Freemason's text on the top of the rubbish bin at the FOL where I worked. It was falling apart, foxed. Sold it for $250 to a thug in Romania who tried to beat me out of the money but eBay backed me up. Made an extra $10 on the book he "returned".  

Haven't even tried to sell by 4 volume history of the Civil War printed in 1866. Bought the 4 volume set for $180. Single volumes go for $1500-2 grand. 

But the one that stands out is a college text book: a Chem 101 book signed and authored by Linus Pauling. I got it at a yard sale for a quarter, not believing the signature was real. Turns out the book was completely re-written after he won the Nobel Prize for discovering something that disproved about half of the first two editions and the signature was real. 

Sold it within a week to a lawyer for a couple hundred bucks. No pictures.

[femmefan1946]

At the turn of the millennium, I attended the wedding of a university friend to his long time partner. His new husband would not be able to get Permanent Resident status or work here in Canada because  he is HIV positive.

Which put their ability to hold jobs in difficulty since Richard no longer had his US green card. They would be switching countries back and forth.

So Richard, who had been a long time SF/F fan and later a book reviewer, reluctantly gave me his 30 year collection of books in consignment for eBay.

A year or so later, I put up a copy of the fanzine Energumen, a lavishly illustrated , gestetnered, Hugo -winner , originally priced to cover costs at 25c.

At the time, Stores were not in Search, and Issue #13 went up for auction at $9.99.

We got $600 for it.

That issue included an article by Dean Koontz, now well -known as a horror writer, describing how in the early days of his career, he and his wife put bread on the table by collaboratively writing soft-core p*rn for men's magazines.

I had had a subscription to the same zine, and my own copy went as a Second Chance Offer to the underbidder, which was the start of my pension.

[picture*books]

In 1973, I bought a mint condition copy of Spider-Man #1 from a friend's brother for ten cents - he preferred DC over Marvel Comics and sold me a stack of 50 Marvels for $5.00. All of the Marvels were circa- 1963-1964, in near-mint condition, read only once, and included Fantastic Four #4.

I sold my comic collection in 1979 during college.

That Spider-Man #1, assuming CGC 9.2 or better, would likely be worth over $200,000 in today's market.