"Don't Trust The Internet," She Said...And I Saw Hundreds Of Dollars Vanish

 Last weekend as my wife and I were running errands preparing for the "Big Day," we saw a yard sale sign. Of course, we stopped by. It was an estate sale, but we found little that we wanted and even less we needed. But, I did spot a book...

Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I'd like to say I paid $1 for it, but we threw it in with some other things so it might have been free. As we do, after returning home with our summer treasures, I got online and checked out the book. After bringing up the first website I accessed, I was almost giddy...other copies of the book in what appeared to be in worse shape than mine were selling for hundreds of dollars.

Score!

I showed my wife. She was equally excited at our find. It was a first edition from Grosset & Dunlap Publishers in New York. I knew the story was from the late Nineteenth Century. The book didn't look late Nineteenth Century so I was confused. It looked to be published in the 1920s, which other websites confirmed. We had even more errands to run so we thought we'd stop at one of our favorite places, an antiques and book store in Brigham City, Utah...3 Goats Gruff, an awesome store.

We stopped and said we found a book at a yard sale and we wondered if it was worth anything. I told them I checked out the internet and had an idea of its value, but wanted to make sure.

"Don't trust the internet," one of the store owners said. The other owner checked out the book and said he'd probably sell that copy for $10 or $15. He said the publisher was known for taking already established tiles at the time and re-publishing them. I left the store feeling a little bummed, but not surprised.

The real question is, will those people actually pay three, four, even five-hundred dollars for the same book? Too bad I don't know any that will.