books: finds

Found a larger pile of stuff than usual out in the world this week, which I attribute to Thrift Stores hoarding stuff before Easter weekend.  Whatever the reason, found lots of books including the crazy surprises detailed below:

An old Elvis pocket book I grabbed on reflex ended up being some kind of conspiracy tome that's selling for $25.  It's always fun to find super expensive pocket books, because the scanner trolls don't bother with them as they "know" none of them are worth anything.

Another pocket book, an old copy of Junkie by William S. Burroughs, turned out to be SIGNED by the old junkie himself, transforming a four dollar book into a hundred dollar book.

Books like those are the benefit of buying good books on principle, not focusing on what your cell phone tells you Amazon thinks.

The crown jewel was an unprepossessing copy of Fundamentals of Music by Boethius that I almost passed on- an overenthusiastic previous owner had "protected" the DJ with contact paper & papered it onto the book itself, plus there was some scattered margin notes.  I hemmed & hawed before adding it to my stack- the notes were in pencil, and while the contact paper was philosophically painful, it *had* done a fine job of preservation- if you squinted, it looked like a *really clean* paperback copy instead of a ruined hardcover.

Plus, it was a strong subject & had been published by Yale, two points in its favor.

Turns out to be "worth" $330.

It is wise to be skeptical of unsupported prices like this-  one copy, no other editions listed- so I poked around a bit.  No other copies anywhere that I could find, anywhere, at any price.  The seller of this one is notorious for their ridiculous prices, but....it's an important book and there are no other copies anywhere.

So I'll leverage their listing to sell my "as is" copy for....probably a hundred bucks.
If it was in better shape I'd push it, but I have a feeling it'll sell immediately for a c-note.

Not a bad return on a $35 investment.