US Legends Of The West Book (1994)

Does anyone recall what these books were selling for when new? I seem to recall that they were way overpriced for what they were, and the interest in the books soon waned, as people collected only the stamps and tossed the book aside after reading:



As luck would have it, I found one of these sitting on a bookshelf at a local thrift store priced at less than $3. No stamps, but the hardcover book itself must be worth at least that. Looks like no one did more than glance at the pages as it's looks as good as the day it was sold new and someone probably just took out the stamps to use for their collection (or for postage!) and tossed the book aside.

Probably not worth much more than what I paid, but at least I got a nice USPS piece without paying their exhorbitant retail prices.

I never seen the book before. Does it have spots for the Legends of the west sheets? I have mine framed and on my wall in the office.

Yes. The books has spots for the Legends of the West sheet (spaces for them both front and back (with text descriptions of each character). There's also a facsimile image of each stamp on the applicable page of the book.

Here are a couple of roughly scanned images of the book's content:



Upon closer examination, it seems the answer to my first question as to how much the book cost new is answered in the reverse side of the stamp selvage that states the book could be ordered from the USPS for $24.95, plus 50c postage = $25.45 up until 04/01/1995 (it doesn't state whether stamps were included in it for that price, though.)

Considering I bought mine for $2.99 in 2012 (without stamps), I got a 88.25% discount on it!