Why I Hate Selling Books On Ebay

I sold this lot last week:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/183338911281

Message from buyer today. USPS sent him one of their 'body bags' with the torn portions of the box with his address and mine. That is all that is apparently left of my shipment of nine books. He wanted me to pursue with USPS, I just refunded him in full. Not clear if the shipment got stolen or more likely it burst in transit.

Fortunately this was the last time for quite awhile I plan to offer anything heavy like this. I used what I thought was a secure box, plastered it with wrapping tape. Sometimes you cannot win.

Life lurches on..

'Tis a shame. Interesting you brought this up - I was thinking hard about buying that lot, but forgot to set it to my watchlist so I let time laps. :-(

It went to a buyer in NYC. Nothing against NYC but the same thing happened a couple years back with a buyer there, he got the front of the box and an apology. If this was intentional theft the thief must have been disappointed. Those books will wind up in a landfill someplace. Best not to think about it.

I came within an ace of bidding on that lot, too, but July was a bad month for the budget.

Your Israeli Philatelists might have met the same fate coming here, too. I ordered a Michel catalog from Italy last year (from a Bookfinder listing, not from ebay); the bookseller was nice enough to go to the Vatican and mail it with a bevy of Pope Francis stamps, but His Holiness and about 3/4 of a Tyvek bag were all that ever showed up.

I feel lousy thinking about the magazines ending up in a landfill, though. Israel's got enough history to keep topical collectors going for another 4,000 years, and that magazine must have some fascinating writing in it.

A few years ago I received an order of old books via USPS. The box had burst open, and USPS wrapped it back together with their packing tape. With it was a note explaining they had re-wrapped the box and put in some other old books they thought were part of my shipment. They weren't. Does the USPS have boxes of old books bursting open so often they can't figure out where the books came from?

Robert

I went to the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference in Oxford in 1992 and mailed a box of books home to the U.S. At the time, Royal Mail had a bizarre regulation that such parcels were to be bound with twine and not taped shut. When my parcel reached California, one of my books was missing. A friend of mine who was at the same conference also shipped some books home to California and found his Tolkien books replaced with paperback romance novels.

As an "Oh, God, not another ....... elf" type, I'd have been relieved by the appearance of Georgette Heyer.



Recognising that the distances travelled and the means of transport used are very different in England and the US, I've been OK with book oarcels, but I do board and tape them to within an inch of their lives. This is also what auction houses do. My assumption is that they need to withstand chucking around, dropping from a certain height etc. I did have one buyer who requested that his parcel be wrapped in a bin-liner, as the postman would probably leave it on damp ground outside his rural retreat.

I think in general it is better to simply donate books such as I sold rather than going through the hassle of listing and shipping- especially on bound or reprinted periodicals. . Unless we're talking about very scarce items. You seldom get smack for volumes like this and then have to pay ever increasing mailing costs. I'd have been better off donating these to a local club, church or temple.

Agreed. My ebay experience of selling books is that it's a huge effort for virtually no money, even if you manage to sell them. I've had a charity collect around ten large boxes of (decent) books over the last year or so. What I'll no longer do is drag them up the local charity shop to risk being met with "We aren't taking donations this week".

Stamps1962, I really appreciate book sellers. I sometimes look for books on ebay and it is nice to have a variety of sellers. I can understand the frustration of having your shipment lost though.

I'll still give you a thumbs-up for the Hugo Dyson reference.

Myself as well, I continually buy books, catalogues, auction catalogues,
monographs.
Generally I find most vendors are too expensive, the minute I find an item of reasonable value I swoop.

I have bought 5 in the past month.

Things like Australian Perfins catalogue at $180 probably will never grace my bookshelf.

I think the issue is with USPS. Last year I sold more than 100 books on ebay UK, no complaints about delivery by Royal Mail.

Maybe the extra-thorough wrapping convinced the thief there must be something good inside.