I recently had the great luck of winning a pristine first edition of Suzanne Collins' THE HUNGER GAMES for $8 on Ebay, and it got me thinking about the other great scores I've had in my book-collecting life. One time, a decade ago, I found a first edition hardcover of Stephen King's THE GUNSLINGER for $7 in a forgotten stack at a used bookshop. That's probably my best find. I've had other cool scores here and there.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share "book-collecting victories" here...

Picked up a 1st edition hardcover (perfect condition) of Michael Connelly's The Black Echo at a garage sale this summer for $2. That's my best find. My second best is a 1st edition hardcover of Robert Crais' Stalking the Angel at a used bookstore for $15.

I scored the first 15 books of George R R Martin's Wild Cards series for $60. They were mostly in great condition too. At the time, I did not know that the last 3 books were really rare. A recent ebay auction for the entire Wild Cards series (I am missing the most recent 2 releases) went over $1000! One day when I need money badly, I will put them on ebay.

I picked up a hardcover copy of Harlan Coben's first novel (long out of print, although coming back soon in paperback) in a hotel lobby from the "take a book, leave a book" shelf. I sold it on eBay for $75. I think that's the thing I found that was worth the most money.

My Connelly story: I started collecting him way back, when he had just two novels out. I was in a local used shop and found a nice copy of the ARC of BLACK ECHO for a few bucks, so I read it, loved it, bought the hardcover, which was still very obtainable. Then I happened to find the ARC and hardcover of BLACK ICE. Since then, for some reason, I've made a point of collecting both the ARC and hardcover of every Connelly book. That's one of three or four authors I've done that with, along with Joe R. Lansdale and Jonathan Carroll. I think it's cuz I worked in a bookstore so long and got those ARCs all the time.

I was browsing though the remaindered books at a Borders and found 2 (out of 15 or so) of the books signed by the author - Michael Moorcock. One even had a flyer to the signing in the UK. I got one for myself and the other for my friend who had lent me his books to begin with.

I thought these were really cool. Received them from a friend who couldn't move them in a garage sale.

Thy are old library books from '64, not especially rare but interesting and not something I would have ever considered looking for.

Not in my collection, but . . .
A couple of years ago I saw a copy of The Collected Jorkens, Volume 1, by Lord Dunsany for under $30. I snagged it. I already owned all three volumes in a slipcase, so I flipped it on Amazon Marketplace for $300.

I had bought Volume 1 a couple of months before for $150. Now they're selling for $350.

Hardcover copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earths Core which I bought at a used book store for 5 bucks. It's a rare find because it's a movie tie-in for the 1976 movie of the same name. Movie tie-in books are almost always paperbacks.

I used to go to Book Baron in Anaheim, CA, back in the day. (It's now closed... man, that was a great bookstore.) They had a lot of rare books for ridiculous prices, and all the employees were pretty savvy about the value of things. But one time I found a paperback copy of Welcome to the Monkey House signed by Kurt Vonnegut for a buck. (It certainly looks genuine, and I don't know why someone would fake an autograph in a paperback.) I also found a copy of the very first printing (as far as I can tell by my limited research) of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for about a buck. It's a UK paperback that was issued after the radio show, but before it really became a phenomenon (at which time they went back and issued hardcovers).

I used to there weekly (lived about 2 blocks from it) back in the 90's. Check out Bookman in Orange on Tustin. Great place to losse a couple of hours and browse the shelves. IIRC, I think Book Man inherited a lot of the inventory from Book Baron when they closed.

This may not be a super-incredible find to some, but over the weekend I was thrilled to find an illustrated John Carter of Mars hardback with the first three Mars novels for three bucks at my local Barnes & Noble :

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Joh...rary+of+wonder

It was on a "red dot" 75% off table.

I just thought of another one.

I used to go to the flea market and look at every single book on every single table. One guy had a couple of boxes of '60s porn paperbacks. They looked pretty dumb. But, right in the middle, was The Velvet Underground. I snagged it.

May not be to everyones taste but found a cheap 1st print HC of Roderick Thorpe's "Nothing Lasts Forever" which is the basis for one of the best movies of all time. No, not Showgirls. Thats Eszterhas. I'm talking about Die Hard. It was like 5 bucks at a flea market type place. I giggle at the prices people want for it on the interwebs.

Last weekend, at a Friends Of The Library book sale, I found a nice, slipcased, facsimile first edition of WHO GOES THERE? by John W. Campbell for $3. I see it going for over $100 online. Nice!

About a year ago I ordered a book that was out of stock from a bookseller in the UK, so they offered me any other book in return.

I looked all over their website and finally found a book I was interested in and it was a copy of The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Inside the inner cover of the book there was an inscription (I have to paraphrase)

To Jenny from your aunt and uncle, Merry Christmas

London, 1939.


Not sure how much the book is worth, but it survived the Blitz and I just wonder about it's history and how it got in to my hands.

Found a signed copy of Harlan Ellison's Watching for 10.95 a few weeks ago.

I stumbled on a 1929 copy of "War-Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator" at a used bookstore that was in great condition with Brodarted cover for $5. It's a fairly cheesy highly fictionalized account of WWI aerial warfare but what sealed it for me was the inscription. I'm paraphrasing here but it was something along the lines of "To Paul, This is nothing like what we went through and I suppose that's just as well." Plus the cover art is garishly attractive in its own right.