A close friend of mine passed away and his mother has asked me to sell his hunting books. The list is long and I would like to offer the entire list to a company that buys and sells used books. If any forum members have dealt with a reputable company please let me have their name. Thank you. MMP

Expect to receive 35% to 50% of their value. There are dozens of companies that buy and sell rare hunting books. Select one of your friend's hunting books and check its title on Alibris.com, Amazon.com and Abebooks.com and you'll find their names.

Bill Quimby

Man, I'd love to look at that list but highly unlikely I could afford the batch.
Good luck with your efforts.

If you can stand the aggravation of single sales, you will net her twice the money, or more, that a book company will offer. Their business model is to offer 35-50% of what they expect to net.

Rich

Agree with Rich. There are few things that sell as fast as books on AR.

That depends. I've sold within a week nearly every African hunting book I've posted on AR's classified thread, but books on hunting on other continents move slowly, if at all, unless marked way below what dealers on internet sites ask.

Also few AR members seem to be true collectors of Africana hunting literature. It's been my experience that AR members want reading copies by popular authors, and are more interested in price than condition. Rare first editions by little-known 19th and early 20th century writers don't seem to interest them much.

Idaho Sharpshooter may be one of the exceptions, though.

Bill Quimby

I buy a book or two on AR - thanks Bill Q - but I tend to check out the prices in other places , or wait a while till the price drops a bit . The differance in exchange rates makes some of them too expensive for me , but I am always interested in whats available.

I have an accumulation of hunting books , not just Africa , but mostly reading material as opposed to collector volumes.

Individual listings is the way to go though.

Mufasa - why don't you put the list up here on AR and call for PM bids on it - after all you have a wide audience of interested people right here. A lot of interested readers/collectors have a pretty good understanding of current prices but eventually the collection is only ever worth what someone is prepared to pay on the day. I'm not sure about AR rules but I'm sure something could work.
Let's have a look at the list .

Saeed has a rule against posting classified ads without prices, which precludes holding an auction.

Bill Quimby

you could also get an offer from a large company and then post the list, someone might offer you more money and take the whole lot of books.... I might be interested depending on how large a colection and what topics are covered...

I've had a weakness (or good taste) for African hunting/history books since I read Ruark back in the late fifties as a 9 year old. That has expanded to history of the world as I got older.

I would suggest PM'ing the list to Bill and having him help you price them. He could tell you which ones would bring the best prices and sell here quickly.

I would be interested, but my budget is one good book a month model.

Rich

Mufasa:

You can get an idea of the value of those books yourself by visiting the sites below:

Alibris.com
Abebooks.com
Amazon.com
Bookfinder.com

You also should look at the definitions of terms in common usage for book collecting. "Good" and "Very Good," for example, may not mean what you and most people would think they mean.

Bill

Gee, what a kid. <.G>

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I've had a weakness (or good taste) for African hunting/history books since I read Ruark back in the late fifties as a 9 year old. That has expanded to history of the world as I got older.

I would suggest PM'ing the list to Bill and having him help you price them. He could tell you which ones would bring the best prices and sell here quickly.

I would be interested, but my budget is one good book a month model.

Rich

My advice would be to contact Jeff Savage at Grapevine Antiques and get him to sell them for you. He'll do consignments for a fair commission and has a market for everything from reading copies to rarities. And he's good people, just don't tell him I said so