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He sounds like he has no concept of the book market at all, and like most people, vastly overestimates what his collection is worth. I guarantee you he will pay

He sounds like he has no concept of the book market at all, and like most people, vastly overestimates what his collection is worth. I guarantee you he will pay someone to haul those books away.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ink_13 5y ago
I don't agree. Sounds like the right interested party could get the collection for just the cost of shipping, which seems reasonable to me.
- sramsay 5y ago
  It’s the “interested party” part that’s hard. He might be a collector of rare works in the area, but it doesn’t sound like it. So it’s likely the value of the collection as a collection lies with the name attached to it. But trust me: People thousands of times more famous than him have trouble with this. But I’m reacting more to his certainty that he will have so many people wanting to pay for his books, that he’ll actually be trying to decide whether this or that library will have the privilege (and that he’s being magnanimous by not charging for it). Again, he really doesn’t understand the book market. It would have been wiser to ask a local bookseller to take a look (and tell him the brutal truth) before posting his “offer.”
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    But the local bookseller won’t have any idea who he is or what the material is. His blog readers do.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  The question is whether there will be any interested party. Most of the documents in his library are probably not worth anything. But there is also no harm in trying. Perhaps his celebrity will lend the library worth it would not have had on its own.
stevekemp 5y ago
I recently found a woman who was giving away all here computer-science books. She had things like this all in hardback, and near pristine condition: * TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 1 - Stevens * TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 2 - Stevens * Advanced programming in the unix environment - Stevens * The Dragon Book * Applied Cryptography * Design and implementation of *BSD In the end I received 1 meter of books for free, apparently the hassle of dealing with deliveries, collections, and the relatively low demand meant it was better for her to get the damn things removed all at once, even at a loss, than deal with it. I feel pretty lucky, as I used to own most of these books but they didn't survive an (international) relocation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
spoonjim 5y ago
He's only asking shipping costs (he says "maybe a purchase price"). I think some library out there would take it off his hands for media mail shipping rates.

He sounds like he has no concept of the book market at all, and like most people, vastly overestimates what his collection is worth. I guarantee you he will pay someone to haul those books away.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ink_13 5y ago

I don't agree. Sounds like the right interested party could get the collection for just the cost of shipping, which seems reasonable to me.

sramsay 5y ago
It’s the “interested party” part that’s hard. He might be a collector of rare works in the area, but it doesn’t sound like it. So it’s likely the value of the collection as a collection lies with the name attached to it. But trust me: People thousands of times more famous than him have trouble with this. But I’m reacting more to his certainty that he will have so many people wanting to pay for his books, that he’ll actually be trying to decide whether this or that library will have the privilege (and that he’s being magnanimous by not charging for it). Again, he really doesn’t understand the book market. It would have been wiser to ask a local bookseller to take a look (and tell him the brutal truth) before posting his “offer.”
- spoonjim 5y ago
  But the local bookseller won’t have any idea who he is or what the material is. His blog readers do.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
The question is whether there will be any interested party. Most of the documents in his library are probably not worth anything. But there is also no harm in trying. Perhaps his celebrity will lend the library worth it would not have had on its own.

stevekemp 5y ago

I recently found a woman who was giving away all here computer-science books. She had things like this all in hardback, and near pristine condition: * TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 1 - Stevens * TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 2 - Stevens * Advanced programming in the unix environment - Stevens * The Dragon Book * Applied Cryptography * Design and implementation of *BSD In the end I received 1 meter of books for free, apparently the hassle of dealing with deliveries, collections, and the relatively low demand meant it was better for her to get the damn things removed all at once, even at a loss, than deal with it. I feel pretty lucky, as I used to own most of these books but they didn't survive an (international) relocation.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

spoonjim 5y ago

He's only asking shipping costs (he says "maybe a purchase price"). I think some library out there would take it off his hands for media mail shipping rates.