How to Turn $500 into $7 the Hard Way

I think the most interesting part of this story is the guy with the 80s Honda and no computer. Who was he? Was he underprivileged in some way, or had he embraced voluntary simplicity as a way of life?

I’m always fascinated by people who live out of a sync with a consumerist culture…

@JD: If it was a used DVD, then you could have returned it. If it was a new one, then they are not allowed by federal law to take it back, except as an exchange for the exact same item (thanks, RIAA & movie equivelent!).

I had just assumed it was used, if you were getting it at BB, but maybe not. *shrug*

As a child, i would read the Encyclopedia. The great thing about them is that they are fact-checked by people for whom that is their job, you won’t find any random porn, or other such material, & so on. If i had a child tommorow, i would still buy an Encyclopedia.

However, putting them onto your CC, and (i assume) not paying that off in full IS the stupid bit.

Thank you J.D! My mother has been trying to find a home for the encyclopedia set my sister and I used growing up. I called her and told her about your story. She was thrilled with the solution. I think she held on to them for this long because she and dad did without so we could have them.

@Lise – I’m with you! What about this family? I’m surprised that JD didn’t talk to the guy and end up giving him an old used computer. That might have done the little girl even more good…

As I’m writing this commentary I’m looking at a 1990 edition of Grolier’s The New Book Of Knowledge. Well it’s not mine, so I’ll have to ask my uncle what he plans to do with them.

Nobody in the house has touched them for years! Full disclosure: every adult in the house has a laptop plus there’s the family desktop :d

I’m 31 and cannot imagine not having had a set of encyclopedias in the home. My brother and I constantly used the set my parents bought for us in the 80s, for all subjects! How things change. Even though I’m still fairly young, I’m a little old-fashioned, I guess…I like vintage clothes, REAL books, CDs, and even LPs and cassette tapes. I’ve never downloaded a thing from iTunes–don’t even know how. And I can’t imagine reading a book electronically. My boyfriend has never even had an e-mail address…so maybe we are living in the Dark Ages, LOL!

See, you just bought the wrong encyclopedias.

If I could ever bring myself to sell my 11th Ed. Encyclopaedia Britannica, I could probably get at least $200 for them. It’s a complete set of the cloth-bound handy volumes in decent condition, with the beautiful maps, and entirely readable. I paid $15 to get a missing volume; a friend gave me the rest.

Now, as research into the way the world is, they’re largely useless. As research into the way we thought it was, though, they are priceless and fascinating. And yes, they are public domain and the Gutenberg Encyclopedia has them online — but that makes them even better, because I can do keyword searches, too.

I’m deeply moved by the image of your old, great books helping a family who might otherwise had gone without. Many of us, especially in blogosphere, take Internet access at home for granted. I live around many hard-working kids who just don’t have this luxury. Your trash. Their treasure. I wonder how far those books will take her …

That is precisely why I will never be wealthy. When that guy said that his family didn’t have a computer and that his, presumably 10 year old, daughter loves to learn, I’d have given him one of my laptops. Moreover, I would have loaded it with Edubuntu Linux and every open source educational software package under the sun.

My father in law used to keep a few $20.00 bills in the pages of his encyclopedia set (a nice leather bound one since my husband once worked for Encyclopaedia Britannica in Chicago). Our set is in the living room bookcase wall, and it is probably as quick as google for some searches; and for long-article reading I still find a book easier than a screen…

We have a set of WB encyclopedias ca. 1980 I inherited from my parents. My four boys use them all the time, for school as well as entertainment. Surfing the web doesn’t compare sitting on the couch browsing in the books.

We grew up with a great child’s set of illustrated Goldenbooks my mom bought one at a time at the grocery store. None of them stayed on the shelf, but stacked up by the toilet, where we all took turns reading them cover to cover. So, by virtue of my mother’s conviction that knowledge is power and my regular bowel habits, I was the only one in my class who’d ever heard of an aardvark (much less spell it), could explain Darwin’s theory in an understandable way, knew the difference between tropical and subtropical, comets and meteors, tornadoes and hurricanes (then, all commonly called “cyclones”) and that there is one mammal that lays eggs.

Whether it did me much good or not is another question…but I do know that the idea of keeping a computer by the toilet just doesn’t have the same appeal.

You did not buy a stock that tanked. You bought a set of books. The internet made them obsolete, mostly. The way any technology goes down in price. I have a hard drive in my closet, about 10 years old. 170MB (yes, megabytes). It cost $300 new. At CES this past January, I passed a booth and was handed a 1GB thumb drive for free. They sell at Staples for $10 or less on sale. I’d still love to own a set of OED in hardcover, real books. But encyclopedia, that’s the work of the net for me.
Joe

$1145? I thought $500 seemed pretty cheap.

And I love how people just assume that just because you paid by credit card, you paid tons of interest. Anyone think of the possibility that you paid it off right away or soon after?

Folks, for your aging encyclopediae, there is ALWAYS a reader base, even if there’s no economic market! Our men and women in the military are ALWAYS looking for something to read! And, closer to home, there is a desperate need for reading materials in prisons, as well. There are folks there who could be helped. Consider donating to Books Through Bars – you may make a bigger difference to society than you ever anticipated.

MITBeta, if I had a car/transportation, I would GLADLY give you $7 for your Bowflex! I would even give you $10 for it – and I’d use it, too!

Hannah, my walkman works just fine, even with the introduction of ipods. I therefore see no reason to rush right out to buy an ipod. As long as CDs are available (even if only through garage sales, I can use my walkman. Heck, as long as the CDs I currently own are good, I can use my walkman.

I see no actual point to regretting what one has purchased, when something cheaper follows on its heels – most especially if it’s something that would never have occurred to you, such as the Internet v. encyclopedia development. Way Back When, my Dad bought a calculator. Since he bought it in the very beginning of its introduction to the general public, he paid several hundred dollars for it. Now calculators can be found on keyrings and as prizes in cereal boxes. He never regretted what he spent on it, even as the price for a calculator dropped steadily. I know, because I asked him. He told me that it paid for itself many times over, and it was well worth his having it when he did. I think the only way to avoid swimming in The Sea Of Constant Regret is to determine if the purchase you made was one you could afford when you made it, and if it fulfilled the need you had for it when you bought it. Otherwise, your options are to live in a state of miserly misery – “I coulda bought it cheaper if only I had waited!” – or to not buy ANYTHING, on the grounds that the price was bound to come down – eventually. At that rate, people would still be pecking away at manual typewriters. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a manual typewriter – or even a pencil, for that matter – but I like using a computer for document production. (Of course, when the power cuts out, it’s nice to have that manual option, too.) I will say that it has been my experience that any time I make a major purchase, it is the signal for the price of that object, whatever it may be, to drop dramatically – AFTER my purchase has been made, of course. I HAD to stop thinking in terms of “if only I had waited!” – otherwise the constant regret, day in and day out, would eat me alive.

I’ve done something similar. I have a house full of books. Lots of hardcovers and tons of paperbacks. I figure that over the course of the past twenty years I’ve spent $50,000 on books. If I took them to the local reseller I’d probably get five bucks a case, and maybe $400 for the entire collection. I’ve always been a huge reader and have entire collections of several authors.

Two things brought it home for me. First, I moved last fall and had to box and haul ALL of them. (Yes, I moved myself, for the last time.) Second, I had to unpack them.

Horrible investment, but years of good entertainment.

Great, great post! I love your blog.

But there is no way you could have known that internet will take away the need for your books.

I think that investing in knowledge is never a bad thing!

Another option for the books is to donate to an overseas charity. There are many countries where children have no internet, no phone, no library, no shoes. Document the gift and perhaps you can get back some of what you put in and be pleased to gave knowledge and a smile to a child at the same time!