Stolen library books

[faithsbks]

Ebay is at risk of becoming a vehicle for the sale of stolen library books, if it is not already.  Old books with library markings, often valuable ones, are frequently listed for sale on the Antiquarian Book site. Such books are typically marked as "Ex-Library" with pics included showing such markings. But in every case the markings should include a "Discard" stamp showing that the Library itself removed the book from its collection. Often

such "Discard" notices do not appear in the listing. This very likely means the book was stolen. Ebay should have a rule that no library book may be listed without a photo showing the Discard notice.

[annadryl]

I kind of agree, but he made a LOT of dough yesterday on prime day...

[mobley120]

"You would probably make more selling the fresh mint LOL

It grows here too not that prolifically, now ask me about foxgloves & assorted berries.. UGH"

Lol, yeah, I have right many old library books that found their way here, but none of them are hot... I guess I could pluck the mint leaves and use the books to dry and press them. But the ink might be a prob... That mint really puts a pleasant aroma amid the air at the ole back porch, so that's kinda nice.

Right now we're dealing with honeysuckle that has taken over 2 popcorn bushes, ah, the honeysuckle smells good too, but it's messing up the popcorn bushes, although they have already bloomed and this year's blooms are but a memory.

Oh, just to mention, not only does it seem "in our community" that we're a drop off point for unwarranted stuff, we also seem to be a drop off point for unwarranted cats, sigh, usually averages one or two a year. We have to catch them, which is an experience, then it costs us 50 bucks each to have them neutered. Why people will drop of cats, is very disheartening... We deal with our local pound, to try and find them homes, but we don't have much luck in that, so we got plenty of cats too, and they're not hot either. I actually like the cats, just not a ton of the furballs, but what are we to do. We take good care of them, that's the only option, as we see it.

"now ask me about foxgloves & assorted berries.."

No way : )

[1tuna]

I have read over 30,000 newspapers going back to around 1970 I guess

theft from ibraries was a major major problems in the last 5 decades

the preferred method was just stealing the pages with a razor. major historical books were plundered along with rare documnets going out in the valise

 paper was easy to steal back in the day

CCD cameras were not poular in the libraries but shoud have been...........   some crooks stole millions over many years and were caught

libraries  were majorly embarrassed at the time

[yuzuha]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Libraries in my area get rid of books all the time and they do not use discard stamps. They have book sales open to the public where they sell not only donated books, but books they weed out of their collection to make room for new ones (complete with library markings) and I've never once seen a Discard stamp. I've been to library book sales in several counties.

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Same. I have a few books I've purchased from my local library's book sales and I've never seen a Discard stamp on any of them.

[mobley120]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Libraries in my area get rid of books all the time and they do not use discard stamps. They have book sales open to the public where they sell not only donated books, but books they weed out of their collection to make room for new ones (complete with library markings) and I've never once seen a Discard stamp. I've been to library book sales in several counties.

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Same. I have a few books I've purchased from my local library's book sales and I've never seen a Discard stamp on any of them.

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Nor have I noticed a stamp of "discarded" on any of my old library books. However, I do have plenty of them that are stamped with "no longer property of county of X public library"

See picture below for an example:

 

[2013grotz]

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@mobley120 wrote:

Anyway, please feel free to give me a bit of knowledge concerning the boxes of cards... we're planning on having a yard sale towards the later parts of this coming month... If they have any value, I guess the wife and I could dig them out of the shed. They are of the late 80's and early 90's era...

 Well as we were talking about, the factors you're looking for are rarity and interest.  The major problem with late 80's, early 90's stuff is that the card companies saw the interest cards were getting (especially starting from 1985-6, "baseball cards are the new stock market!") and started printing them to the point of oversaturating the market.  Copy the demand, everyone bought them (so the companies weren't hurting), so everyone was holding onto them and keeping them.   Interest means more or less "is it a player that people know?"  In the era of the cards you've pictured, you can hit a pretty valuable Brett Favre or Emmitt Smith or Troy Aikman, among a handful of others.  So more or less, if it wasn't of a "good" player that got famous, everyone has them, so no one had interest of anything past the good players.  Couple that with the Steroid Era stuff and the market interest cratered.  Notably, a lot of the companies realized they were disillusioning their market by making the cards so plentiful (high supply = low value), so they started fancying the cards up, limiting the number per pack, and selling them for about 4X what they went for before.

Now if you start considering unopened boxed sets or unopened packs (you have those in your pic, can't tell which), you're in a bit of a gray area.  You got the "good player" factor, but it gets softened by all the bad player cards, but you don't have to worry as much about condition too.  As an example, I had a set that was worth basically what two of the "good player" cards booked.  The unopened packs are kind of a lottery thing too on whether you hit a good player card.  So those kind of soften out to a medium level.  People have what you have pictured on ebay going out for around $20 or $30 total.  Of course for your yard sale, you could open up a box of packs and sell the unopened packs for 50c a piece and see what happens.  But you'd definitely do better keeping them unopened and putting them in front of more collectors (a ebay listing would do that).  But you'll have to see what you feel is worth your time.

Don't know if any of that helped you out, but hopefully it did.

[coolections]

You would be wrong. Libraries always have sales to get rid of old stock. It is legal to sell them, it is legal to buy them. They are not stolen.

[mobley120]

@2013grotz 

Yes, your response is very very helpful and very enriching of much needed knowledge... Yeah, the boxes are full of the unopened smaller boxes, like the ones on top, they all still have the plastic wrap on them.

We are taking a break from eBay this year, and maybe some of next year too. But the wife wants to start back with eBay, some time in the future. We have become a bit bogged down with some heavier type items that's been dropped off over the last several years, old stereo systems, (pioneer, Kenwood, Sony, Akai, plus about 18 big speakers, 200 to 400 watts, they're too big to deal with, other than in a yard sale) and projectors, and some old blue point automotive tools, plus some other stuff , some it is good stuff and some is pure yard sale stuff. (expensive shipping type stuff) 

So I think what you're saying is that it'd be better to deal with those cards on eBay, and if we did put them out at a yard sale, ah, we'd probably put a buck per box on them (the small boxes) and hopefully someone would stop by and buy all of them. But I think we'll go with your recommendation, besides, she'll need some kind of something to sell with her other knick knack stuff. And I've copied your response so she'll have that too, to get her started... Me, I'm very much trying to go fishing and play more golf, I've been retired but yet this junk keeps me working, just want out of it, wanna go fishing, and I really like golf, but I don't get to do much of either because of the darn junk...

I truly thank you for the much needed help...

[2013grotz]

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@mobley120 wrote:

Yes, your response is very very helpful and very enriching of much needed knowledge... Yeah, the boxes are full of the unopened smaller boxes, like the ones on top, they all still have the plastic wrap on them.

 Remember the key on those will be "unopened".  As long as that's the case and there's no visible damage to the cases you should be fine treating those as you would any other item you'd put up on ebay.    The problem is going to be if you have opened identified cards.  In that case, id of the player(s) involved, condition, and a couple of other factors are going to come into play and the whole prospect will get a bit trickier to both value and sell them.  Good luck, whenever you get a chance to try it!

[varebelrose]

County of Henrico?

Howdy neighbor. I'm in New Kent.

[mobley120]

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@varebelrose wrote:

County of Henrico?

Howdy neighbor. I'm in New Kent.

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Howdy  neighbor, although we're bit west of Henrico: Louisa, we're near  lake Anna. My oldest son lives in Henrico; daughter in Bon Air; youngest son in Hanover... But I know New Kent quite well, worked in Toano for many years, and many times I used route 60 to commute the trip to and from, just to avoid 64. Darn drivers on 64 are crazy, plus my old jalopy struggled to keep pace with the crazies. 

Over the years word of month tagged us as a place to rid of unwarranted/abandoned stuff, mostly rental clean outs. A lot of it was/is out of Henrico, ah, several landlords. But we are trying to put the brakes on that now: too old and tired to keep messing with it. But we also get a little bit of stuff from other areas too, leftover yard sale junk, old outdated electronic junk, property clean-ups, stuff like that. 

Anyway,  maybe you can make the trip this way when we have that yard sale. Gonna put out some great deals, just to rid of the darn stuff. 

Nice to meet you.

[div_style]

I have bought PALLETS full of ex-library books on military surplus auctions, none of which were marked with the word "discard" and none of which were stolen from libraries.

[varebelrose]

Cool beans! Please do send me a PM. Louisa is not a bad trip, and now that we no longer are actively hitting yard sales every single weekend, it would be nice to make a day trip and get out of the house again.

[scroll-card-and-art]

This is very true!

I've personally made decent money selling old mystery series books (Nancy Drew, etc.) and discarded homeschool curriculum books.  I bought one curriculum book for a dime and sold it for $130 and it was not an old book; just pretty limited and hard to find.

[scroll-card-and-art]

Your LPs... don't assume there's no value there.  I purchased a stack of 200 at 25 cents each and I'm very happy with my sales so far.  Plus, imo they sell much faster than the books!  I hope you at least comb through them and spot anything that might have value.  Then again, the most valuable LP out of the 200 I bought is a title I've never heard of and would've never known had I not researched it.  I would take those LPs off your hands if I could!  lol. :-).