@keziak
One of my long-term sources dried up recently, due to his death. While he was alive, his stock was eclectic; and he never bothered looking up values from the internet -- so I've scored quite a few boxfuls of worthwhile inventory from him over the past 30 years.
He had never bothered pricing his books very high -- rarely anything higher than $3.00, and that was for recent best-sellers, in which I have no interest. I'll gladly settle for the cheap $1.00, $1.50 and $2.00 books, that I know are undervalued.
My wife and I just visited his store a month ago, to discover some surprising changes. First of all, a newer (and younger) employee had re-sorted nearly every book in stock, so that the genres actually made sense (mysteries with mysteries; westerns with westerns; military with military; and so on).
Of course, this saved me a great deal of time, since the original owner had given up on accurate genre sorting very likely shortly after he had opened -- resulting in only the brave and foolhardy (guilty, as charged) venturing to examine each shelf on the odd chance of discovering a rarity amongst the mishmash.
But the kicker was the pricing: Some obvious new inventory had hit the shelves, and some books which I definitely would have purchased in the past for $2.00 or less. But, wait a minute -- what's this $5.00 price tag?!?
Turns out the old guy had finally passed away, and his warehouse had been cleared of inventory. A nicely framed photo of the fella hangs amidst the shelves, and somebody new had taken over. (Sigh).
I gathered up the 20 or so books which I had found, and made my pay-out at the cash register. I congratulated the new owner on the recategorizing of the existing inventory, and inquired about the chances of any additional books coming from the old warehouse; but, no, none from the old dependable cheap stockpile -- "but check back again, because the new owners will be regularly restocking".
Yep -- restocking with new, inflated prices.
No thanks -- looks like I'll cross that source off my list. So long, Charley -- and watch out for the silverfish.
Maybe it's just as well -- I'm getting to be of that age when the shadows are growing just too long at twilight, and book-hunting is just not as much fun as it was 40 years ago.
I'm not giving up yet, mind ya -- I have way too much unlisted inventory piled around me.
But I'm just not planning to do all the running around, up and down, and back and forth, as I did for 60 years.
Book-hunting is fun -- but physically and mentally exhausting.
