I have been using bookfinder for years to locate long out of print historical works I need for my research. Generally, I find it very useful. That said, prices can be all over the place. Frequently (more than half the time) I'm able to find original editions of a rare book for less than the cheap "print on demand" reprint. I've looked up books that I know are still in print (because I work with the publisher) and found them used for twice the price of a new copy that is still readily available. I've often found books that were offered on ebay for half the "buy it now" price. The used book business is very unpredictable but generally the "you've got to be kidding" prices are a product of ignorance and/or wishfull thinking.
Glad to hear this lot found a new home the best of all possible ways. One warm and living human hand to another, directly.
Damned if it doesn't seem there is a spark of life as conveys with the books when I shed a carton now and then to a fellow reader rather than a library or used book trafficer.
"Unpredictable" business for-sure. Kid brother, already a published poet, tried his hand as a rare book dealer whilst Day Job was Depute Law Librarian, "merica's then-largest Law firm. Good eye for inventory, professional descriptions or no, it wasn't his best-ever idea forty-five or so years ago. Doesn't fly even as well, now.
More along "up until" around 20-odd years ago, I'd make an annual or semi-annual pilgrimage to my favorite bookseller, foot of Covent Garden, have a few cases of books shipped back to the USA, as they did that all the time, cheaply and well.
No longer.
Google and a ton of others have been scanning and digitizing like mad. Selectivity of search functions beats the time easily a thousand to one vs dead-tree sources if not a full million to one.
If I want to still enjoy the life-long preference for a book I can actually HOLD - "for real" not on some tabletish thingie?
May as well be a mystery novel, historical dramatization, the travels of ages long gone - or the travails of a mildly demented lad managing to survive the DAMNDEST of adventures with old motor cars, but you'd know all about that one, thanks, t'was a good read!
Present day? Damned seldom a reference work. Internet search and display is just better and faster.
Modern lives have gone too busy to spare an hour for a mystery or the several hours wanted for groking a technical"ish" tome on milling or the like. Any sort of hand at it knows full-well you can't memorize those the same way as to simply remember history or fiction. They include maths and numerical klews that have to be confirmed, present-day tooling and alloys when yah actually go to put tool-tips to war with metal.
May as well remind me how to plow 'taters with a horse, given I'm old enought to have already done it, and was young enough at the time I had to learn the potatos were the ones not all warm, soft, and smelling rather too pungently of horse gut.
"Information age" thing? Seems so. Damned shame in a way, but there yah have it.
We - so far, until "they" burn anything useful, people included - have far the better access to information that ever was before.
Insane overload of outright GARBIDGE aimed at our screens too, but we just have to learn to seive better - and are still well-ahead of the old ways.
Pardon my whimpering out loud about "days gone by". but wot the Hell. Easily a thousand times more good books than interesting wimmin', no shortage of either, ever..
And I can only hope God in her infinite mercy never puts me to the question as to which one I would do without, ever I had to do life's journey all over again.
Tough enough choice I'd have to decline the offer, queue-up for the next express bus to Hell, hope the Devil had sumthin' on
his shelves I hadn't yet read.
