Debate: Is spending $50 on a random thrift store book haul worth it or a gamble?

I dropped $50 on a stack of old sci-fi paperbacks last week at a garage sale in Phoenix, and one turned out to be a first edition that might be worth $200 on eBay. But the other nine were moldy and unreadable, so I basically flushed that cash down the drain. Do you guys stick to a hard budget or just roll the dice on weird finds like I did?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_barbara15d ago

...and that's exactly why I'm the queen of the "maybe I'll find a hidden gem, probably I'll just find cat pee" school of thrifting. Last spring I spent $45 on a box of 80s romance novels, convinced one had a signature inside. Nope, just a dried-up bug and a bookmark from a library that closed ten years ago. At least my bookshelf looks more interesting than it actually smells, right?

parkernelson15d agoMost Upvoted

Disagree hard, that box of musty books IS the hidden gem because it tells a story way better than some signed first edition could, and @the_barbara you're missing the point that a dried bug and a dead library bookmark are basically archeological finds from an era we'll never get back.