Cindy Shebley

I love petroglyphs -- have always been interested in them, so I picked this book up the second I saw it -- and when I scanned it -- I was pleasantly surprised by the value. (most of these types of books aren't worth much in resale value).

Check it out here: The Rock Paintings of Tassili

As interesting as the book is -- the pick itself was a bit of a challenge.

I noticed an ad on Craigslist late Tuesday night for a 4 hour mid-week estate sale (10-2) on one of the local islands about 50 miles north. The estate, according to the ad, was from a lawyer who had books, loved Chinese art, and the house was full of both. It had my interest so I was willing to do a mid-week trip.

Missing, was the physical address. Not daunted, I emailed to ask where it was. I received a reply within minutes with the address. Unbeknownst to me it was incorrect. The seller had given us the neighbors address instead. The area has a wonderful view of the Puget Sound but there are trees, etc., blocking one house from the next. When we arrived shortly after 10:00 a.m. there were others buyers already on the milling around. All of us had the wrong address. While waiting for someone to show up to open up the sale buyers were milling around and looking in the neighbors windows. I'm glad the neighbors weren't home -- LOL. I was prepared to give up, but decided to try texting the contact. Glad I did, she replied right away that it was next door, up a little dirt path. So, while many others left -- we found the estate and were pretty close to the fist ones in.

What Dany and I found was a mess… the house looked like a scene out of a movie -- completely 'tossed'. What kept us from leaving were the hundreds of books. They were everywhere. Books were on shelves, on the furniture, stacked high in corners, in the pantry, laundry room, spare rooms and kitchen. Dany and I pulled out our Droids and started scanning the books for re-sellable ones. Before long, we started a pile. As we worked our way through the stacks the first thing I found was art books (I love art books!) but the majority were pretty common, penny books, on Amazon. Shortly after I started in on the art books I found The Rock Paintings of Tassili book .

Around every corner there were more books, cookbooks, hardback fiction, architecture, law books, vintage. However as is often the case; out of the hundreds we went through we found about 25 that were valuable enough to make and offer on… Dany was ready to finish up, so she started looking at the other items and found a handbag worth several hundred dollars, but the seller decided to keep it. I'll let Dany tell you that story.

Just as I was getting ready to pack it in, I came across a room where books were literally tossed across the flood and buried under bags, clothes and other stuff. Of course, here were the valuable books. They were academic books worth $20 to $40 each or more. I filled up a grocery bag full of these books and went to find Dany and negotiate a deal.

When book buying -- always look high and look low -- most people only scan the books within their comfort zone and won't look above their heads or get down on their knees.
I found Dany having her stuff taken away as she tried to bargain a deal on her found treasures - not putting her in a very good mood -- LOL. But in the end we managed to buy the bag of books, the art books and assorted vintage books for $45.00. We estimated the resale value at about $900 before fees.

In the meantime, I'll be enjoying reading about the Rock Painting of the Sahara Desert.