The Enid Blyton Society

John Pickup wrote:As we've said before, while people are prepared to pay those prices.....

I first read that as "white people".

I did too!

So did I

I didn't!

I didn't either, Daisy. I guess they should have gone to spec savers!

Probably, yes.

Just ran across this latest example of a rip-off... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VERY-RARE-ENI ... SwqBJXUFdF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Even if it is a first edition, £340.00 for a book in "acceptable" condition with no dust jacket and several of the pictures coloured in?!

Maybe the key word is inflation, Courtenay .

Courtenay wrote:Just ran across this latest example of a rip-off... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VERY-RARE-ENI ... SwqBJXUFdF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Even if it is a first edition, £340.00 for a book in "acceptable" condition with no dust jacket and several of the pictures coloured in?!

I sold my 2nd edition with no wrapper and no colouring-in for 'only' £90 and I felt pretty guilty at charging so much!

I wouldn't pay £90 for a book with no wrapper, let alone £340. No wonder prices of collectable books are shooting up when people are prepared to pay all that.

Neither would I to be honest - ironically I was about to reduce the price of 'The Magic faraway Tree' I was selling, to £45, when someone bought it for £90. I admit I was 'trying it on' and didn't expect to sell it...but if someone wants to pay that much for a book, then who am I to complain?

For some reason the Faraway Tree books always fetch steep amounts - even the Dean versions often go for £20 + each. I presume, once again, rather like The Three Golliwogs, its modern PC versions that have made the older versions more sought-after.

Probably, Rob. I remember seeing The Three Golliwogs for sale on ebay recently for over £2500. Ridiculous!

(Rob's post that I'm quoting was in the "What Enid Blyton book have you recently bought?" discussion recently, but I've copied it over here to a more on-topic thread.)

Rob Houghton wrote:I can definitely recommend 'World of Rare Books' -- but people shouldn't confuse them with 'World of Books' which I think is one of the worst sellers on eBay! World of Rare Books is excellent and I've bought some really good books from them for reasonable prices. By coincidence, I also bought a good DW copy of 'The Naughtiest Girl Again' from them a few months back.

World of Books' - in contrast - sell books using stock images. Last year I bought a DW copy of 'Noddy Meets Father Christmas' from them - however when it arrived, far from being a DW version it was a 'new edition' without even golliwogs in it. I sent it back, and they replaced it - with exactly the same book. Admittedly the book cost only £2.50 but they shouldn't show pictures of the DW version and then send a new edition from the 1990's! I've never bought anything from them since.

Rob, I was remembering your comments here just last week when I was searching on eBay for a book (non-Blyton) that I really wanted and the only copy I could find was from World of Books. So I hesitated a fair bit, but as it wasn't a huge amount of money, I figured I could afford to take a chance with them just this once and see what happened.

To be fair, I looked at several of their books available on eBay and they ALL have the quite clear statement that the photo is a stock image and the actual item they are selling may be different, so they are being honest there, unlike some other sellers I've seen. So I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm glad I did, as the book I bought has arrived today (very promptly, with free postage) and it's exactly what I wanted and in very good condition.

What I did find out by exploring their own website (https://www.worldofbooks.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) is that "World of Books" and "World of Rare Books" are actually the same organisation — I'd been wondering about that, given how similar their names and logos are. There's a link to the World of Rare Books site if you scroll down to the bottom of the homepage. I suppose when they get older or more valuable-looking titles in, the company passes them to the Rare Books division — where, as we know, they DO offer photos of the actual books, not stock images, and proper descriptions of the condition of each item.

I'm guessing they have far more books in the "non-rare" collection — "over 2 million in stock", according to the website, which would explain why they don't photograph or describe them all! Maybe when they made that gaffe with you, Rob, some unwitting staff member just grabbed a stock photo of an older copy with dust jacket, not realising there are significant differences between the old editions and the new ones? A stupid and frustrating mistake, but I can understand how it might have happened.

Meanwhile, World of Books have this to say for themselves:

World of Books also buys directly from charities, taking the titles they don’t want or haven’t got space for. So as well as preventing the destruction of perfectly good books, our customers are helping to support good causes too.

I remember another thread here where a number of us were discussing the fact that many charity shops throw away books, especially old ones, if they have too many and/or think they won't sell. So it's good to know there is at least one organisation that's buying up some of those excess books and keeping them in circulation rather than letting them go to waste. I wouldn't buy something from World of Books if I did want a specific edition or needed to know precisely what kind of condition it was in, but I'm just relieved to discover they're not so bad after all.

I find that World of Books does usually have all the details of the exact edition they're selling further down the page - I've avoided buying the wrong thing by making sure I check that. Still annoys me when they (and others) use a title/image which doesn't match the description - or a title which doesn't match the image etc. I usually can't be bothered messaging someone to check which part is correct unless I really want the book.

I think it depends on what book you're wanting to buy from World of books. As you say, and as I've said, they use stock images. That's fine for, say, a modern paperback for reading purposes, but as I was buying a Noddy book, and there are various editions, it seemed pointless to show a specific edition in the stock photo (not to mention misleading).

My issue (and I told them this in messages to them) was that they showed a photo of 'Noddy Meets Father Christmas' with a dust wrapper, and with the multicoloured lettering in the title - but then sent a 'new edition' with all the golliwogs taken out! I wouldn't have objected to them using a stock image showing the 'new edition' but showing an edition with a dust wrapper was very misleading, I thought.