I guess it’s my first hobby really. In my book, a hobby needs to be something that you do completely by yourself. Like snowboarding isn’t a hobby because you really just want to hot box your mom’s old minivan on the way up to a mountain with your friends.
My work schedule is weird so I work a month with weekends off and then next month I work only weekends. And it rotates like that. My friends all work 9-5s so when I’m off during the week I needed something to fill the time. So I started collecting and selling used books.
I’ve always been a big reading guy so it’s a way to profit off something I enjoy. I have a list of books that I search into different websites almost every day. Not to get into the details but first edition, first printing is what you’re looking for. The trick is to get someone who doesn’t know what they’re selling. I do buy off of different sites, but where I get the biggest chumps is easily on Facebook Marketplace. I bought a signed George RR Martin last week for 70$ and flipped it the next day for $400. But besides combing through hundreds of pages of book sites to bid on, I can go out into the wild to try to find rare books in person. Kind of like Pokémon.
Thrift stores can be a rare find, same with flea markets, and most bookstores know what they have, and that’s where estate sales come in. Pretty much I wait for people to die and then rummage through their shit like a scavenger to see if I can make a buck while their body is still warm. And trust me, I’m not alone. Hundreds of people show up to these things.
My first estate sale I was insanely out of my league. To advertise a sale the host posts pictures of everything they’re selling, but no prices. I saw a picture of a book from the 1700s that, depending
on the condition and edition, was going for about 18k on the Internet. I thought I was a sly bastard who was going to buy it for twenty dollars. It was a forty minute drive and I showed up an hour and a half early. I thought I’d be alone, I was the 29th person there. I was a part of the third group that got to enter the house. All the books of value were gone, but I decided to take a look around anyway. When I tell you people, grown adults, were SPRINTING through this house. I shit you not some of them had electric book scanners that told them the value in real time. Like they worked at Barnes and Noble or something. I lasted fifteen minutes and left empty handed.
My next estate sale was a week later. I went two and a half hours early and was thirteenth on line. I made a friend this time, his name was Fred and he was maybe 80 years old. We struck up a conversation after both yelling at some creepy little weirdo who tried cutting the line and pretended like he didn’t know he was doing it. I liked Fred, but the more we talked the more clear it became that his philosophies were pretty dated. I really thought he was going to get me beat up when he told a group of hipsters that he “better smell them if the wind blows this way.”
The house was like stepping into 1972. Shag rugs, wood panneled walls, even the air seemed muskier like there was constant dust in the air. The whole place had a yellow hue to it. I bought six books and an old jar of Tullamore Dew for $160. The Tully jar alone was $500 resale. But the highlight of my search was catching these two bonnet wearing, hard candy in their purses having, grannies, going through the vintage Playboys in old pervert’s bedroom. Unaware of my presence I said “excuse me” to get around them and they screamed and threw the nudie mags across the room. I told them I don’t judge and left. All in all it was about a $1800 day.
My only issue is I’m falling in love with the books I’m buying. I’m having trouble letting go to sell them. My most expensive book could potentially be a 1st/1st Handmaid’s Tale if I get it signed like I’ve been trying to do. I tweeted it at Margaret Atwood saying it was my mom’s Mother’s Day gift and I was hoping to get it signed. There was no way my mom was getting that. Margaret must’ve seen through my bullshit because while others got a response all I got was crickets. My favorite book is my Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson. It’s worth about $600 but I post it for triple that because I have no intentions of parting with it unless someone really stupid comes along.
It’s a pretty cutthroat business, collecting books. I’m waiting on a few authors to die to increase the value on some books, and waiting on a few neighbors to croak so I can scavenge through their bookshelves. But I enjoy it. What kind of weird hobbies do you have?
