[edwest]

Dear Richard,


There are specialist booksellers out there that will, obviously, offer the books you have at a higher price than what you might imagine. When you go to bookfinder, take note of who they are. Now, the things to keep in mind when selling a collection of textbooks are these:

1) Condition. The better, the more that can be asked.

2) A book dealer, regardless of who it is, may give you 50% of the current asking price for that title in the general marketplace. Sometimes less if the book is considered "common." I would say the average buying price would be 25% of what it's going for to 30% if the book is clean and looks new.

3) I would try eBay. I know of one dealer personally and whenever he comes across what he thinks is an odd or unusual item, he puts it up. Using the Buy it Now feature, sometimes the item is sold within the hour, other times, it languishes for months. As someone who places items for sale on eBay that are owned by a friend, I have detected no real pattern. The listing fee is low and I recommend putting up each book individually.

The downside is that you may - may - see the same book going for less on eBay than you'd like. That's why you can try a specialist bookseller.

4) The books you mention are not yet old enough to be considered antiquarian but I picked up an early book on missile guidance from a used bookstore only to find out the book was selling on the market for between two to almost three times what I paid.

5) Prices can fluctuate for unknown reasons (weather? planetary alignments?).

6) So make sure you write a will that clearly spells out how you'd like your books to be sold, and a price that you think is reasonable.




Hope this helps,
Ed