Pipswich wrote:Nothing reminds a reseller that prices are not fixed quite as directly as the cost of international shipping.  It is quite common for overseas shipping to cost more than the item.  In one instance two years ago, a customer paid $68 to have a rather common $10 item shipped to Australia.  When I asked why they were willing to pay the shipping the reply was direct and easy to understand.  They could not find another seller willing to ship the item to them.

This is so true. I am severely geographically disadvantaged, living on the continent which is most frequently excluded as a shipping destination on eBay (I live in South Africa). This frequently means that my options are quite limited when hunting down rarer items, and since I'm usually not the only international buyer, I generally end up participating in auctions which go higher than those which limit the buyer to the US. Add the actual costs of international postage, and on average, I probably pay about twice as much for collectables as I would if I was in the US.

But, as I once pointed out in the "Introduce Yourself, Fellow Collectors" thread, I can at least boast that I probably have the largest D&D collection on the continent .

grodog wrote:Leading Edge Aliens board wargame in shrink, 3 hours left, $76 atm:  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110954883375

Finally home from work and this was here waiting for me. I am having a Smarmy moment, though...I bought it to use, but tearing the shrink is somehow giving me pause!

TheHistorian wrote:

bbarsh wrote:Finally home from work and this was here waiting for me. I am having a Smarmy moment, though...I bought it to use, but tearing the shrink is somehow giving me pause!

You have to ask yourself, "Do I really want to be known as smarmy2?"

There can be only one, smarmy1, of course.

What are these books?!?

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...apparently they are related to frpgs but i never heard about them... are they interesting?

Only related to RPGs as much as Bulfinch's Mythology. Time-Life produced a series of collected myths and fairy tales back when I was a wee lad. My sister had most of these (I believe my youngest cousin has them now). They separated them into general topics, such as Ghosts and Hauntings, Elves, Tales of Valor, and one was even Christmas themed.

Very basic level stuff as I recall. You can get more thorough info on such topics elsewhere.

They were cool at the time.  Solid hardcovers with nice illustrations.  Time Life printed TONS of these though, so if you want it, a complete set of Enchanted World (21 volumes) would be on the order of $100, at most.

beasterbrook wrote:They aren't related to RPG's at all..
Time life bought out lots of those series books.. collect all 20 volumes etc that sort of thing, first one is $5.. the rest are $50 etc.

Really?  I had no idea they were worth that much.  Hmmm.....

It's a mail order business model/sales technique designed to take advantage of the fact that people are lazy about writing.  They would send you the first one free or for a nominal cost, but you had effectively subscribed to the series and had to write them a letter to cancel.  Of course, your letter might never arrive, or take 6-8 weeks to process.  Meanwhile, the price was relatively high for subsequent books in the series and they just kept coming to your mailbox.

There were fantasy, magic/occult/ WW2, Civil War/ Wild West and numerous other series.  They all seem to start out with a fairly good book to get sales started.  Frequently, the second book is pretty good too.  Then they start sprinkling dross in with the occasional good book... leaving some interesting topic for the final book in the series.  Since people are 1. lazy 2. thought they were collecting and 3. don't pay attention to the value of individual books....   many people were apparently willing to buy 2 boring books they didn't want for $10 or $20 in order to get the one further in the series that they might want.  

It was quite the racket based upon the number of these we have encountered in thirty years of bookselling.  The sets are more rationally priced now.  Most full sets have over a dozen hardback books, look nice on a shelf and run $40 to $90 per set.  Like most things, they are better value now than when new... which makes it more tolerable to put up with the dogs.

The real problem with these sets for a bookseller is that they are space hogs.  You spend more shelf space on storage and/or display than you want to.   This is especially true if you try to assemble sets from loose volumes since you have them taking up space waiting to become a set worth enough to sell.  I have a tendency to put them under my pool table and end up bumping my toes on them, lol.

Almost all are fun reads, oriented toward average reading ability, with good pictures and drawn from widely available public sources.  In other words, there's no meat on 'dem bones.

Pipswich

Every time these pop, I think, "Wow, that's really cool cover art!"  The I reread a description of the game and realize I'd never open them.


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