In addition to its annual book sale, our local library has a few tables of books for sale year round, as well as a small locked book-sale room occasionally manned by a Friend of the Library. The room is stocked primarily with current hardcover fiction—which interests me not at all, a couple of shelves of children’s books, and a few overpriced first editions.
Still, I’ve found a few gems there, so I keep checking whenever I find the room open.
Last fall I was amazed to discover the nine-volume set of Olive Beaupré Miller’s Picturesque Tales of Progress, a much sought-after treasure, in the library room for $15.00. I’ve never seen it listed for sale for under $100.
I casually paid the library volunteer…and waited until I got home to do an end-zone victory dance.
Just a few weeks later, a homeschooling friend went yard-saling with me. Dawn is perpetually amused—and occasionally inspired—by my hyper-organized approach to life, so I had a lot of fun showing her how I had carefully plotted our trajectory to hit the most yard sales with the least backtracking.
After about five hours in the Mississippi humidity, we were tiring out, and we knew we needed to get back to her home, where her brave husband Dan was caring for my four boys in addition to their two girls and two boys.
So as we approached the last couple of sales on my list, I was inclined to drive on by. The goods looked picked over and probably not worth the effort of getting out in the heat again.
But just as I eased past the driveway, I caught a glimpse of a bookcase out of the corner of my eye.
I just had to stop.
And there it was, lurking on the bottom shelf in a messy garage full of yard-sale rejects.
The fourteen-volume set of Hillyer and Huey’s Young People’s Story of Our Heritage.
For $10.00!
Fortunately, I had beaten Dawn to the finish line by a split second, so I claimed the prize. (I did, however, generously permit her to purchase the $10.00 set of My Book House from the same shelf…even though I had touched those first too.)
I hadn’t been home for two hours that afternoon before I saw the Hillyer and Huey books, in slightly better condition than my just-acquired set, offered for sale online for $12.00.
Per volume.
I just know if I keep looking, one of these days I’m bound to stumble across that rarest of all Landmarks, The Mysterious Voyage of Captain Kidd!
*****More stories like this are available at www.ConfessionsOfABookjunkie.com. Contributors include Tina Farewell, Jan Bloom, Michelle Miller, and more!*****
Great blog! Congratulations on the Hillyer and My Book House finds! I know you heard my jaw drop at the TEN DOLLARS for the 14 vol. set of Hillyer. You must have been dying to contain yourself at the checkout!
This reaffirms my private contention that the best books and coolest antiques are found in the grungiest, most unlikely places. And those finds are the most pleasurable too… it’s like a giant treasure hunt… which will keep me going back for more… more… and more…!