If you’ve been a ready for any length of time and have looked up at my blog name you’d figure out pretty quickly that this site is about selling books.  Not rocket science, right?  However, as booksellers, we’ve been through it all; old, dusty thrift stores, yard sales during the sweltering heat of summer and digging through boxes that haven’t been touched since Jesus was alive.  Of all the places we go to look for books is it possible that we’ve had such a one-track mind that we’ve passed up many, many treasures in the process?  I know it!

We all can’t be experts on everything and spot every diamond that needs to be polished, but we can be open minded and to get our heads out of the bookshelf and look around a little bit.  If we’re going to travel to places in search for book treasures anyway we might as well take notice of what passes us by on the way to the boxes of books.

This short story is from a reader of mine that wanted to share a find that was out of this world and to convey not to put the blinders on when we’re out and about.  Treasures are everywhere and if we can educate ourselves (we’ve surely got enough books to do that) a little on a broad range of collectible memorabilia then items such as what I’m about to share won’t be shunned just because we’re not “experts”.

This reader wrote me awhile back when I had the family post asking for feedback.  His story was in regards to a doll that his 9 year old daughter found while out at one of their usual book spots.   This doll was made by the Blythe company and was apparently very rare.  Do you know the only reason they decided to buy it for a whopping 50 cents?  It’s because they noticed in a doll repair book that they sold recently!  His wife used some common sense and thought that no one would want to repair a cheap doll and boy was she right!  Note to self: “flip through books on collectible item values from now on”.

This doll’s eyes change colors when you pull a string on it’s back and were sold in America for one year; 1972 and were only produced in sparse numbers.  I bet his eyes popped out of his head when he went home to search the eBay completed listing and found these numbers.

After I received his original email regarding this doll he wrote back again and said that the doll had SOLD to a nice lady in Michigan for a cool $1,200.  You can’t beat a 2,400% profit!

If you get anything from this post; get this.  Don’t just shrug off other items if they aren’t your primary business.  If you resell books, take a trip one day to a Goodwill and don’t even look at the books.  If you resell CDs, go down to your local second-hand CD shop and look at the VHS tapes.  You get the point.  Don’t stick your fingers in your ears and yell “I can’t hear you!” when someone mentions stopping by the antique store on your way to that Friends of the Library sale next time.

Also, start flipping through the collectible price guides that you accumulate in your daily life.  You never know when a little doll is going to pop out at you when you’re least expecting it when armed with a general understanding of value.