You can always count on finding a stack of a course in miracles book tucked away in a corner of an Antique store. Antique stores buy up estates, hold estate sells, and then take what is remaining back to their store for stock.
First, let me say that you need to be aware of the fact that Antique stores will also salt an estate sell trying to sell off some of their stock for “estate sell” prices. For the book dealer this means they have to be aware of this as it could help you save money.
Find out where the library is in the house and see if there are any windows that could have faded the books. If there are no windows, but the books are faded, well, you might be suspect. Just something to think about when you are going through these estate sells. You also might find a lot of Book Club Books from the fifties. This is usually what is found. The problem with estate sells is that the Antique stores usually get first pick, so the good stuff might already be gone. Something to think about.
Are the books priced to sell, or are they really expensive? If there priced to sell this usually means that they don’t want to take the books back to the store. If the books are old looking and priced out of this world, then you know it was priced by the Antique store. Antique stores always price old looking books twice and three times what they are worth. They don’t know books. Oh it’s true that some of them do, but most of them do not. They see an old book as being an old book, therefore in must be valuable. A tourist walks by and sees a book he read when he was growing up, and buys the book, not know of the true value of the book. It is true that being in an Antique store means you pay bigger bucks.
Another reason for going to Antique stores is that they are pulling out a lot of books from estate sells, so they will end up in their store before it is sold off, then traded with a used book store down the road.
The Secret is very simple. When you go into an Antique store and find expensive books, look carefully. Yes, they price the normal books at two to three times the value of the book, but they will miss a truly valuable book worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the same scale. So you might pay thirty or forty dollars for the book, but it will be worth hundreds of dollars. Bottom line, they miss the truly valuable books.
Don’t pass up Antique stores in your round of book buying. Be aware of the pricing and double check with what your buying and you always be reward with really fantastic deals from time to time.