Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
Abebooks.com is the place to go for a rough guide to the value of books.
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Remember, prices you see for used books at Abebooks.com or fetchbook.info or Amazon or Ebay are just what the seller
wants for the book-- it doesn't mean that they will be able to
sell it for that price. Used prices go everywhere from the steal to the robbery.
Just one example out of myriad-- I bought this book new while it was still in print-- then my copy was lost in storage for a long time, and when I finally found it had been somewhere that it had been exposed to humidity and mildewed. By that time, it was out of print, and used copies were selling for double or more the cover price. I waited, and then one day a cache of several "new used" copies showed up for less than the cover price (around $16), and I bought a replacement copy.
Today, I see all the cheap copies are gone, but there are still copies ranging from over $30 to one idiot hoping to get $137. For all I know, these may be the same high priced copies that have been there for years.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=new
And you'll see that same pattern everywhere-- a few moderately priced used copies that aren't selling, a few obscenely high priced copies that aren't selling, and the occasional cheap copy that you won't see long because somebody grabs it.
So when you see higher-priced used books sitting up for sale at Half or Amazon or wherever, all you really know is one thing-- nobody has bought it yet.