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Does anyone want to discuss vintage children's books with me? I love the thread of the vintage Anthologies! :D

 

I just recently found some Marguerite de Angeli books that are out of print as well as a copy of "Grandfather's Chair" by Nathanial Hawthorne (no copyright date but 1899 written on inside inscription). Both of these were very inexpensive so I am excited!

 

Have you found any lovely vintage books lately?

 

Are there any favorites that you have (for me to be on the look out for)?

Edited by Mommyof3boys
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What about vintage children's books? I adore children's literature so I'll talk with you---but what do you want to know or talk about specifically? :001_smile:

 

Sorry, I was editing my post when you posted! I have questions now! But I would be pretty much happy to discuss anything!:001_smile:

 

I also wanted to ask about free downloads as well. Someone on the Anthology thread provided a link to a download of "The Golden Book of Chemistry". My son and I looked at that yesterday and enjoyed it so much! Does anyone have any free download favorites to share?

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I wish I knew more about vintage books! So many people THINK they have treasures, and I just have no idea about them! I'd like to be knowledgeable in this area, but am at a loss as to where to start!

 

My family also volunteers at the thrift shop once a week and I am known as the "book lady" because I always organize and stock all the bookshelves. When a book is sitting there for a month, we recycle it. And I always feel bad, because a lot of these are "older" books and I wonder if they might have some value to them. Where would be a good place to check that kind of thing out? I wonder if I could bring a box of them home and just check that sort of thing out?

 

The stuff that sells is usually the books in nicer condition and are up to 20 years old. Once they start yellowing, they just sit there. We get enough donations that we sell shelves full, re-stock, and I still pull and recycle an average of 3 boxes a week. The majority of stuff I pull was put out by kind 80 year old ladies with poor eyesight that don't notice the corner was chewed off by a dog or the pages are full of dead ladybugs. :tongue_smilie:

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I wish I knew more about vintage books! So many people THINK they have treasures, and I just have no idea about them! I'd like to be knowledgeable in this area, but am at a loss as to where to start!

 

My family also volunteers at the thrift shop once a week and I am known as the "book lady" because I always organize and stock all the bookshelves. When a book is sitting there for a month, we recycle it. And I always feel bad, because a lot of these are "older" books and I wonder if they might have some value to them. Where would be a good place to check that kind of thing out? I wonder if I could bring a box of them home and just check that sort of thing out?

 

The stuff that sells is usually the books in nicer condition and are up to 20 years old. Once they start yellowing, they just sit there. We get enough donations that we sell shelves full, re-stock, and I still pull and recycle an average of 3 boxes a week. The majority of stuff I pull was put out by kind 80 year old ladies with poor eyesight that don't notice the corner was chewed off by a dog or the pages are full of dead ladybugs. :tongue_smilie:

 

oh my, I can't imagine recycling old books. I LOVE old books. If I worked there I'd be taking them home...unless they were eaten by mice or silverfish...

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Here's a sample of the typical books I throw away:

 

Old magazines (guess those aren't books, but they're in there)

Fashionable knitting design books copyright 1970s

Books with corners chewed by dogs

Children's book with the front cover all colored on

Books with the covers ripped off or taped back together

NEW Book of History from 1980

Chilton car manual from 1963 car covered in oil and missing the cover

A dozen Harlequin romance books that are so cheap the pages are falling out, or they have way too promiscous pictures on the front to be setting out in sight of the kids

Old yellowed Bible, with tattered pages (I kept this one out for two months, because I hate throwing a Bible away... :( )

College textbook of Economics from 15 years ago

Safety tips for driving from 50 years ago

More knitting books from 40 years ago (oh the hairstyles on the covers of these books!)

First Aid book from 20 years ago

 

Our prices are between a quarter and a dollar, so figure over a month most things should sell, unless there's something wrong with them.

 

It's more the old, hardcover, novels I have a hard time with. Maybe I should just ask to take them home? Is there a good site to check out vintage books and if they're worth anything?

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Here's a sample of the typical books I throw away:

 

Old magazines (guess those aren't books, but they're in there)

Fashionable knitting design books copyright 1970s

Books with corners chewed by dogs

Children's book with the front cover all colored on

Books with the covers ripped off or taped back together

NEW Book of History from 1980

Chilton car manual from 1963 car covered in oil and missing the cover

A dozen Harlequin romance books that are so cheap the pages are falling out, or they have way too promiscous pictures on the front to be setting out in sight of the kids

Old yellowed Bible, with tattered pages (I kept this one out for two months, because I hate throwing a Bible away... :( )

College textbook of Economics from 15 years ago

Safety tips for driving from 50 years ago

More knitting books from 40 years ago (oh the hairstyles on the covers of these books!)

First Aid book from 20 years ago

 

Our prices are between a quarter and a dollar, so figure over a month most things should sell, unless there's something wrong with them.

 

It's more the old, hardcover, novels I have a hard time with. Maybe I should just ask to take them home? Is there a good site to check out vintage books and if they're worth anything?

 

Hi KinderSafari,

 

I am not an expert at all in anything vintage! Personally, I am just interested in vintage books for my children and what lovely books we can read together. I started this thread to talk about what other vintage books people like for that purpose. When I look at vintage books, I am not really interested in the monetary value of the books but I am really interested in the actual story/pictures/etc. I purchase a vintage book if it looks interesting or I think that my family would enjoy it. This week I found three vintage books at the thrift store on Heat Engines, Principle of Thermodynamics, and Machine Design for my husband. (He is a mechanical engineer and was so excited by the way!) We also love older books as they seem to have a lot more beauty and good information in them even thought they are dated. So, I am no help at all!:D

 

However, having said that, I think that eBay or Amazon might be a good place to look and see what things are worth. (That is where I always look!) There is also another website called Bookfinder that will tell you how much the book is selling for on a whole bunch of different websites. They might give you a better feel for if something is valuable or not. Oh, and Etsy has a vintage section of books that might be good too! Finally, there is AbeBooks.com too! There might be better websites out there but I don't know about them. I would think that if a book is in good condition you might be able to sell it somewhere, especially if you got it for free.

 

Do you have any vintage books that your family enjoys?

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I know nothing.

 

We discovered a lot of vintage books at my mom's house. They are precious; they are inscribed with my grandparents' names and they have underlined their favorite stories with cute litle notes next to them.

 

My dd was reading one of the books aloud to my mom via skype - such a cool use of technology and antique.

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I dearly love collecting them. My very favorites, the ones my Mom grew up with and then my sisters and I were the My Book House series. I have bought a set for each of my girls as they adored them as well for their own.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree: I just purchased these not too long ago on eBay for a great price and I love them so much already! My son loves the first one! We have read 1/2 of it already! How special to buy a set for each of them! I am sure that they will treasure them for a long time.

 

Do you have any other favorites? I have three boys so we have a set of readers called "Cowboy Sam" and another one "Dan Frontier". My boys just love those!

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We discovered a lot of vintage books at my mom's house. They are precious; they are inscribed with my grandparents' names and they have underlined their favorite stories with cute litle notes next to them.

 

My dd was reading one of the books aloud to my mom via skype - such a cool use of technology and antique.

 

How special! I don't know anything either but this was wonderful!

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I also wanted to ask about free downloads as well. Someone on the Anthology thread provided a link to a download of "The Golden Book of Chemistry". My son and I looked at that yesterday and enjoyed it so much! Does anyone have any free download favorites to share?

 

Here's one of my favorites, it is added to frequently.

http://freehomeschoolinglibrar.blogspot.com/

 

I would also search the forum for posts by Poke Salad Annie, she is one of the Hive members who actively uses vintage texts.

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Here's a sample of the typical books I throw away:

..

It's more the old, hardcover, novels I have a hard time with. Maybe I should just ask to take them home? Is there a good site to check out vintage books and if they're worth anything?

 

I found Valerie's Living Books to be a good start:

http://valerieslivingbooks.info/

 

But I agree with PP that your personal impression of a book counts (would you use it personally? If it is a child's picture book, could you stand reading it 10 times in a row to your dc?). For what it's worth, I think you have developed that sense already, because the list you published does look hard to salvage.

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I also collect Lucy Fitch Perkins, Twins series and found a lovely old copy of Robin Hood that she did that I was tickled pink about.

And I don't know what defines "vintage" per se but copies of Miss Suzy and Miss Twiggly's Treehouse are already found and put away for both girls to read to their kids too. Also Holling C. Holling's books, I am lucky enough to have my Mom's copies.

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I also collect Lucy Fitch Perkins, Twins series and found a lovely old copy of Robin Hood that she did that I was tickled pink about.

And I don't know what defines "vintage" per se but copies of Miss Suzy and Miss Twiggly's Treehouse are already found and put away for both girls to read to their kids too. Also Holling C. Holling's books, I am lucky enough to have my Mom's copies.

 

I just found about the Twins Series! Do you have any favorites of the series? I also had not heard about Miss Suzy or Miss Twiggly's Treehouse. Are these books that would be good for boys too?

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I have a few books from my childhood that I wish I could find for my own children, but they were already quite old by the time I got to them.

 

I believe one of them was about a pair of children visiting a family member's farm, and taking care of the animals. It was unusual because the pages were split down the middle at one point, with a different story on the top and the bottom. I can see the round, rosy-cheeked pigs eating corn. Unfortunately, the only thing I can ever find when I search are the Maple Hill Farm books.

 

Not that any of you will have heard of my book or know what it is called. :D

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I just found about the Twins Series! Do you have any favorites of the series? I also had not heard about Miss Suzy or Miss Twiggly's Treehouse. Are these books that would be good for boys too?

 

I have the Twins series free on my Kindle btw...they are pricey to collect.

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Here's a sample of the typical books I throw away:

 

Old magazines (guess those aren't books, but they're in there)

Fashionable knitting design books copyright 1970s

Books with corners chewed by dogs

Children's book with the front cover all colored on

Books with the covers ripped off or taped back together

NEW Book of History from 1980

Chilton car manual from 1963 car covered in oil and missing the cover

A dozen Harlequin romance books that are so cheap the pages are falling out, or they have way too promiscous pictures on the front to be setting out in sight of the kids

Old yellowed Bible, with tattered pages (I kept this one out for two months, because I hate throwing a Bible away... :( )

College textbook of Economics from 15 years ago

Safety tips for driving from 50 years ago

More knitting books from 40 years ago (oh the hairstyles on the covers of these books!)

First Aid book from 20 years ago

 

Our prices are between a quarter and a dollar, so figure over a month most things should sell, unless there's something wrong with them.

 

It's more the old, hardcover, novels I have a hard time with. Maybe I should just ask to take them home? Is there a good site to check out vintage books and if they're worth anything?

 

oh yeah, that stuff wouldn't be worth keeping. I was thinking more of the line of old novels and such. I would take them home and look through them, keep the good ones and probably give the other ones to Goodwill.

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