A while back I posted about receiving a gift of some old books that I had as a kid. It was a post about nostalgia and the just of the story is that my wife and I watched a Goosebumps movie on Netflix for Halloween and that prompted me to ask my mom if she still had my old Goosebumps books that I had when I was a kid. That night I learned that she had recently given the books away to a neighbor, which was a serious disappoint that I've since come to terms with. Fast forward a few months to when my mom gave me a gift box with 5 reprinted books in it with the original retro style artwork on the covers. The whole event sparked a serious desire to hunt down the rest of the books in the collection, which has been quite the challenge. You can buy 15 of the retro art style books online so I bought another 5 of them that way. They aren't exactly the same as the originals in that they don't have the raised lettering on the cover and more annoyingly they don't have the order number printed the spine. Why they didn't put the numbers on the spine is beyone me??? But anyway, the retro artwork is the important thing.
I'm reading the books out of order now and am currently reading book one (below) of the series each night before I go to bed.
Soooo, what do I do about the other 45 books in the series that I can't buy online? I've been on the hunt for months now and its been a real struggle to find them, let me tell you. So far I have tried two used bookstore, multiple thrift stores and several antique and consignment shops, without any luck at all. It turns out the books with retro art are pretty rare and hard to come by. Who would have thought? I have a feeling that there is another person like me, or several out there, hunting them down trying to get the whole set for their collection. Or maybe they are trying to re-sell them on Facebook marketplace for a profit? I've seen the books on FB before but I hate dealing with people in that way so I'm using that as an absolute last resort.
My wife and I have been going to a lot of antique malls, like I mentioned, looking for mid-century modern furniture and I haven't seen any books at any of them so far. But last weekend we found another mall a little ways outside of town and while searching through the isles of vendors I actually stumbled upon one vendor selling a few of the books! It was the first time that I had seen them in public so I got pretty excited and snatched them up immediately. We walked around a little more and found several other vendors selling them as well. It was like finding a hidden cache or like hitting the jackpot. I found a total of 10 books that day that I didn't have yet and bought them all up.
This is why I think that there is someone else in the city looking for the books though. It seems strange that there wouldn't be any of them anywhere in the city but then quite a few of them at a location outside of town.
I left the doubles that I saw at the antique mall as well as the ones that I already had in my collection. Maybe the other guy will eventually stumble up them as well and be happy. Or maybe the folks selling them at this mall are the ones buying them up at all of the other locations. Who knows?
At one point these books probably would have been worth nothing at all, likely selling for pennies at a garage sale or in used bookstores. Since they are so rare and there seems to be a demand for them, the price seems to be going up and up at the moment. The price that I paid was about the same or a little more as it would be to buy them brand new back in the day. They originally sold for around $5.00 back then and I bought them that day for around $5.00 - $6.00 depending on the vendor and the "sale" price that they had going on. Some stalls were offering a 10, 15 or 20% discount that day. On Facebook I've seen them being sold as high as $10 per book! And there are 60 books in the series... $600 for kids books would be a lot of money to spend in my opinion.
Anyway, within the series there are a few books that are considered to be the authors best works and therefore are quintessential for the collection. These are kids books mind you, so we aren't talking about prize winning writing or anything like that. All the same, these particular books seem to be especially hard to find. They must be a little more sought after than the others. I figure that if I'm thinking that way then others must be as well, right? One of the books that I'm referring to is called "Monster Blood" and wouldn't you know it, I actually found the book that day at the antique mall. Whoop whoop!!!
I'm super excited to read it and plan to do it next, once I finish the one I'm currently working on. I could technically read one of these books in a few hours, but I read before bed so I tend to only read a few pages at a time before falling asleep. It also really prolongs the experience this way.
One last sort of funny thing that I'll mention is that when buying used books there is a risk of bringing bed bugs into your house. This is a huge fear of mine, so what I did when I brought the books home was put them into a bag and then into the freezer for 7 days to kill off any bugs that might be lurking in the pages. I've also cooked books in an oven before but that tends to brown the pages and if you go too wuth it the glue in the spine melts and makes the pages fall out. So you have to be careful doing it that way.
So anyway, the books are on my bookshelf now and just waiting to be read. The hunt continues for the rest of the books in the series as well. Wish me luck in my search!