The Church of England is regretting its bargain selloff of a huge collection of rare religious books. The Church sold the books for $73,000 to a local book dealer, who resold them for more than $1 million. Amazingly, the Church didn’t bother to auction the collection or even get an appraisal.
The books were cleared out to make room by Church officials who didn’t know how much the collection was worth. Thanks to his tidy profit, the book dealer is closing his shop in London and retiring to the countryside.
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4 Comments
I have had the opportunity to buy for resale religious books (nothing like the above, of course) and I have found that resale is amazing good. Religious people seem to be very willing to buy used books and the books themselves can be older and still have value. It’s become a niche area for me.
Wow! For $73K, the book dealer got quite a tidy profit! Amazing that this happened in this day and age. I wonder about the repercussions in teh church community.
Why is this surprising? What is even more surprising are companies like betterworld books and gotbooks who get even better deals. For example, I was shocked to see a huge donation container on the sidewalk for Gotbooks at Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA last week while out in Boston. The company asks for book donations and even discloses on its website that it is a for-profit company!! Nothing like getting books for free!! Yesterday at a St. Paul area friends of the library store (Maplewood) the clerk told me all the good books will soon go to a company like (and most likely – though she would not be specific) betterworld books. What’s the little guy to do??
Peter
Minneapolis
What’s the little guy to do??
Keep plugging away and don’t shoot for the moon with each book. A little profit many times makes lots of profit in the long run.