Time-Life Series

[John Beaderstadt]

I'm considering putting my Time-Life series "The Old West" on Ebay. It's
complete, in excellent condition, and has the comprehensive index. Does
anyone know what it might bring at auction? I'm trying to figure out if
I should set a reserve price, and how much.
--
Beady's First Law of Social Harmonics: "Never let the engineers write
the instructions."

[Steve Grimm]

If you are looking to get the best price, then you may want to sell the
books individually. Oddly, the master index will probably bring the most
money since the index was only given to people who bought the complete set.
The books sent at the end of the series (i.e. The Women, The End and the
Myth, etc) might sell for around $15.00 each (although I saw THE END sell
for $30 once), but start it low (about $5.00) and let the demand dictate the
price. The problem with selling individually is the books at the beginning
of the series (i.e. The Gunfighters, The Great Chiefs) may not sell since
most people have those titles. It's a gamble, but I think you can make more
money selling them one by one. People don't mind spending $15 for one book,
but for some reason hate bidding $80 for 26 books ($3.00 a book).

If you still want to sell the books as a set, I have seen them sell anywhere
from $80 to $150. There doesn't seem to be any logic other than timing and
having multiple people wanting them at the same time. Using a reserve price
tends to annoy people since they don' know what the reserve is and may keep
some people from bidding. If you want to set a minimum just start the
bidding at the minimum.