Where should I sell my hundreds of baseball books?

June 12, 2006 5:55 PM

Where can I most effectively sell a huge quantity of baseball books? I'm moving, and I have to get rid of several hundred

As a teenager, I was a monumental baseball nut (ok, baseball nerd), and I have a six foot bookshelf worth of baseball books from that time -- a gajillion, in other words. The books are mostly older, mostly but not all quality. About 50/50 hardcover and paperback. I'd sell them on Amazon, but I'm sure many of them I'd lose money on with their fee structure.

posted by YoungAmerican to sports, hobbies, & recreation (13 comments total)

What exactly is a baseball book? Works of fiction or non-fiction or what?

Did you try searching for any of the titles on eBay? Maybe go to a local sports collectables shop?
posted by k8t at 6:06 PM on June 12, 2006

A baseball book is a book about baseball! Some fiction, mostly non-fiction. Some of the titles are ebayable, but ebay is a hassle, and I can't imagine it's the most effective place to sell books... or is it?
posted by YoungAmerican at 6:25 PM on June 12, 2006

Sounds like a perfect use of eBay. Probably sell them as one big lot, or a few smaller ones.
posted by Hildago at 6:39 PM on June 12, 2006

I sold a group of moderately valuable baseball books on eBay earlier this year. I had some earlyish Bill James Abstracts, but the best book I had was The Hidden Game of Baseball. Everything went for more than I had expected. (Which I attribute to my eBay method, which was derived in part from cribcage's guide.)

I have a lot of old SABR journals and miscellaneous books that I don't exactly know how to list. I'm betting that you have lots of stuff like that, too. Probably a baseball discussion forum would be the best place to pawn this stuff. That's where I trade a lot of my not-so-valuable comic books. (Well, in a comic book forum, not a baseball forum.)
posted by jdroth at 7:20 PM on June 12, 2006

jdroth - you have any suggestions? I'm a bit out of the baseball discussion loop these days. In the past, I'd have posted on SABR-L
posted by YoungAmerican at 7:32 PM on June 12, 2006

HOLY MACKEREL... I'd better sell my copy of The Hidden Game. $71?
posted by YoungAmerican at 7:33 PM on June 12, 2006

There've been a number of other bookselling threads you should dig up here. If there are specific titles you think might be valuable, use Bookfinder or Abebooks to find the range of prices other sellers are currently asking. Cheapest edition of Hidden Game of Baseball on Bookfinder right now is $84, e.g.

You might also want to take a representative sampling to a couple of used bookstores around town and get them to make an offer. The better ones won't mind if you've done a bit of research as long as you realize asking prices you see online tend to be higher than selling prices. If you go to a store, know they'll generally offer 20-50% of what they hope to get for a good book, depending on how quickly they think it can sell.
posted by mediareport at 8:13 PM on June 12, 2006

Media -- I thought a bit about bookstores, but I can't imagine that any of them could absorb this many books on one topic. There's literally a couple hundred, most used bookstores have like 25-50 baseball books at most.
posted by YoungAmerican at 9:59 PM on June 12, 2006

If you're looking to sell, the advice I'd give you is to sell it as 2-3 shippable lots. You want to avoid going through the entire eBay process and have 70% not sell.
posted by unixrat at 9:59 PM on June 12, 2006

YoungAmerican: Contact me.
posted by unixrat at 10:01 PM on June 12, 2006

If you do put them on eBay, please be sure to put notification on here so I can take a look at what you have or alternatively if you want to you can send a list to me. Thanks!
posted by 543DoublePlay at 4:35 AM on June 13, 2006

I can't imagine that any of them could absorb this many books on one topic.

To be honest, YoungAmerican, a couple of hundred books is nothing to a good used bookstore. I work in one, and we get folks bringing books by the hundreds every weekend. You'd be surprised at what can be absorbed. Baseball isn't one of our stronger sells around here, but we recently bought a golf library about the same size as yours, and we regularly buy hunting/fishing libraries that are larger.

Point is, start with the interest you've got here already (jdroth's baseball forum suggestion is a great one), but the bookstore option is worth checking, too.
posted by mediareport at 6:47 AM on June 13, 2006

I didn't really want to lug them around to bookstores, so I listed them on craigslist for a few days, then put them up on ebay.
posted by YoungAmerican at 8:38 AM on June 21, 2006