I've been going to our FOL sale for at least 5 years, and have never had this happen.  I purchase upwards of 200 books each time I go.  Sorry this happened to you.  Pat

What's an FOL sale?

BookwormKath, an FOL sale is a Friends of the Library sale. If you are interested in finding out if any are located near you, you can go to booksalefinder.com.

I have been going to our local FOL sale for several years and like Pat purchase over 100 books each time. I have never had that happen before, but thanks for the advice. Our FOL sale is coming up in the middle of October and I can't wait.

I've never had that at the FOL, but I have bought unpostable books without knowing it.

Even with the odd disappointment, FOLs are a great bargain.

I never had that happen either and I am sure it wasn't even a mistake by the FOL sorters  I sort for my FOL and you just skim through making sure nothing is in the book, not nasty and the pages are not ripped.  We never check to see if the cover matches the book.   The person donating probably made the mistake.

Have heard of that happening with used books, but it's a rare occurrence.

Our FoL has a continuous book sale room with small PB at 50 cents, trade size at $1 and HC at $2.   Children's books get marked less.

Books too beat up to sell, we box up to donate to our local corrections dept for the prisoners.  Dirty, buggy , really torn up ones go into our "special" dumpster where they get picked up and used as fuel to generate electricity. (yep, they really try to be eco-friendly-- our renovation project which starts in 6 months includes adding 2 parking spots with a recharging plug for electric cars !)

Our annual "big" book sale is 22 OCT-- we have several storage "pods" filled with special books, new releases, etc that we will put on sale.

Always look inside a FOL book.  Most of the time it is things like bookmarks or receipts but sometimes you find interesting stuff in there.  I once found eighty dollars.  I returned it to the library just in case the person who donated the book realized it was missing.

I've bought books at a wholesaler who deals in remaindered books and seen trade paperbacks bound with the wrong cover for the book!  (I also had one that was bound with the cover upside down.)

Alas, the wholesaler is going out of business, and the thrift shop near me just raised its prices.  It used to be 10 cents a paperback, or a bag of them for $1; now it's 25 cents each--still cheap, but before, I could just buy a bag of stuff I thought my husband *might* be interested in, and swap/freecycle/donate the rest to my local FOL.

Our library just had their semi-annual FOL sale (a month early, caught me off guard).  I've never had that problem with the wrong cover, but I did pick up one book I was really excited to see.  It was ex-library, but it has 100+ wishers here so I knew someone would want it.  After I got it home it noticed it has quite a bit of water damage.  That's what I get for not looking at it more closely...

http://www.booksalefinder.com/ 

Oh! Denise!  What a wonderful site!

Thank you!

Got one for book fairs?

I used to always hit the FOL book sale, which was a huge annual event (27 library's books). But now I can't go because I work on Saturdays (which is the day when, starting at 3, you can get a paper bag full of books for a dollar!)

Get this, I work at a library! Tempted to take the day off next time.

Lucky you!  Here bag day at the sales--when they have one--is usually $5/bag rather than just $1.  But the libraries that have on-going sales often don't do a bag day even when they have a big sale, and some of the others donate the books at the end of the sale to other non-profit organizations rather than basically giving them away to the public.

And as I noted, even the thrift shop has gotten rid of pricing by the bag.  (They also used to occasionally have $5/bag sales for their entire stock--I suspect that's gone as well.)

Man, I wish my local thrift store had 25 cent books!  The average price here is probably $1 for mass markets and between $3-$5 for everything else!

Our FOL sales are better, though; there's usually at least one happening somewhere in the South Bay each month.  I've had to stop going because Mt. TBR is just too big without the temptation of $5 bag sales :-p

WAAAHH! I miss my FOL sale...this year I have pledged not to purchase a single book for money (in an effort to reduce my TBR stacks and shelves) so I avoided the spring FOL sale and will not go to the fall one coming up.

I have also found a few dogs at FOL sales, the book looks good and then you get it home and discover a huge food stain while paging through, or a bunch of underlining and writing not noticed on a quick look. Often the FOL is so crowded and hectic it's not possible to do a totally thorough exam at the point of sale, but when you come out of there with two huge sacks of books for $10 or less I look at it as a minor loss if I find a small percentage I discover later that I can't post. I figure if I spend too much time thoroughly examining every book, I probably will lose out on something I really wanted further down the way, so I tend to snatch and grab and look more carefully later. I have to say that our Friends of the Library volunteers do a pretty good job of vetting books that are obviously in poor shape before they ever hit the tables.

Cheryl

Zina, I've never seen that happen with a book before, but I've seen it fairly regularly with LPs and CDs at the thrift stores I frequent. I *always* check those. I don't worry as much about the books, since I usually buy trades.

Evelyn, I went to a booksigning once and some of the books were bound upside down. I deliberately bought one, as they offered a 10% discount and binding errors are occasionally collectible.

I'm sure what Pam meant is that Alisa should list the water-damaged book in the Book Bazaar given there are so many wishers -- because of course she cannot post the book on her shelf and then PM requestors about the damage -- that is against the rules!

Wow, when I worked our FOL book room sale a few days ago, I grabbed 6 PBs even though I have over 100 books on my TBR list-- 4 were for me eventually and 2 for hubby.  I don't normally check to see if books are WL unless I'm posting them., So imagine my surprise today when I looked at my TBR and saw 5 of the 6 are WL books!  That never happens to me!  I always have to purposely buy a book I know lots of folks are wishing for!

My library doesn't do bag sales, not even at our annual sale later this month. I think with the demise of Borders and the bad economy, more people are buying used books so they don't have to practically "give them away" to reduce the stock.

Remember on rare ocassions weird errors ( like the cover upside down ) can become a collectors oddity someday.

I havent been to a big FOL sale :( My local library always has some, bought four today, 25 cents each....actually hadnt been to the library in years but was bored and  hopped down there after reading this thread.

Everyone who is posting thrift store prices, you're lucky! My used bookstore is typically 3-4 dollars per paperback (several up to $6) and even the Salvation army here is typically over two dollars.

In Gainesville, Florida, the semi-annual FOL sale lasts for five days.  I usually go on the second day (Sunday) as you can park in the bank's lot across the street. and you get into the sale as soon as it opens.  Saturday is a madhouse with people starting to line up the day before and they will only let a few hundred in at a time, so you have to wait until people start coming out.  The number of items on sale ranges from 400-500,000+.  Most books run from 25-cents to $2.

I also go on Wendesday afternoon as it is 10-cent day. There are usually about 100,000 items left. Last year I got 50 VHS videos for $5, including some real classics from the 30s.  However, this year I think I'll go on Tuesday - 1/2 price day - as the crowd is smaller and you have more time to browse, as most are waiting for 10-cent day. On 10-cent day, some people load their carts without even looking at the titles. They must own used book stores. 

However, some people are buying books for libraries in neighboring counties, and some clubs are buying books for our servicemen and women overseas. The FOL also monitors the Books for Soldiers web site and uses some of the funds from the sale to pay to ship requested books overseas.

I've gotten some really outstanding books. You have to train yourself not to look at the bright, newer books, but the old hardbacks that look well worn. I've gotten many first edition (sometimes the only edition) books written by men and women who fought the Japanese in the Philippines after that county was overrun. I really treasure these.

Seldom do I get home and find problem with the books. Well, on second throught, that's not true. The problem I do find is that some library books are only three to four years old, in great shape, and they are already being disposed of.  Possibly because they were not checked out often enough. What a shame and a waste.

Last year I browsed the local FOL sale and found 12 Travis McGee paperbacks by John D. MacDonald.  I'd read many in the series years ago, and enjoyed them.  I went back on $2/bag day, and amazingly, all the McGees were still there - I was able to post all of them to PBS, and as of today 11 of them have been enjoyed by fellow PBSers.  Looking forward to Oct 22, this year's sale!

I love FOL sales.  They usually have them twice a year here.  I think it may be about time for another sale.  Need to ask my local library.  You can really find some great deals.  Ours sells hardbacks for dollar and paperbacks for 50 cents.

I went today and they actually had lots of books left! Price went up, to 2 bucks per plastic sack, but I managed to get two sacks of random books. Almost 40 books for 4 bucks :D