I buy a lot of my clothes at thrift stores, and I always check out the book section when I'm there. One thing I noticed is that there are certain authors who tend to be found at thrift stores. Stephen King for instance, I don't think I've ever gone to Goodwill without seeing at least two or three Stephen King hardcovers. John Grisham, David Baldacci, James Paterson, and James Michener are some more. And guess what? R. A. Salvatore is another. He's not so easy to find as King or Michener, but if my past experience is any indication I'd say there's about a 15-20% chance whenever I go to Goodwill I'll find a hardcover R.A. Salvatore book. Usually they're the newer ones, and I've seen on eBay that certain of his newer titles can be bought cheaply for like $4 or $5 including shipping, but I've seen some of his older hardcover books at Goodwill too. I once saw the hardcover edition of the Cleric Quintet series, and people are asking like $50 for that on eBay, but that was a while ago before I decided to start collecting these hardcovers so I didn't buy it then. Usually they're in pretty good condition too. The four I've bought so far are in brand new condition.

Has anyone else had any luck finding these books at thrift stores? What have you found?

I see a lot of paperbacks too, like today the thrift store near me probably had at least 15 DragonLance and Forgotten Realms paperbacks, but I didn't buy them because I'm mostly just interested in buying the hardcovers. I have a vision in my mind of a nice wooden bookcase in my room with every single R.A. Salvatore hardback on it.

That's cool. I have noticed that if there's a used bookstore near a particular Goodwill I find slightly less Fantasy and Sci-Fi books, but in general I find a good amount, I wouldn't say a lot, but at the very least 10 different fantasy/Sci-Fi hardbacks are there each time I go and at least 40 softcovers. Usually they'll be a lot of one author because I guess the same person donates them all, like sometimes I'll see a bunch of Arthur C. Clarke, sometimes Isaac Asimov, etc. And when I find a Salvatore book usually there's more than one, like I went yesterday and found another, it was Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and there were a lot of other hardcover Star Wars books too, brand new condition. I didn't get it though because I don't like those prequels. And I did find a non-Salvatore hardcover Forgotten Realms book yesterday also but it didn't have the dust jacket so I didn't get it.

Hey have you seen those people in the thrift store book sections who have barcode scanners attached to their phones? They scan books barcodes and it gives them the value of the book. I don't do that myself, but I have noticed these people, I see them all the time. They seem pretty focused on like the textbooks and I've never seen one systematically scanning every book on a shelf, so hopefully no real competition there.

AlienOctopus,

My company sells wholesale remainder books.  We often have semi-current sci-fi and fantasy authors/titles for low prices, and shipping is pretty low.  Website isn't the greatest but that's outside my responsibility (but I'll still apologize for the embarrassing horror anyway).

For example, we have a few Salvatore titles in stock right now.  We also occasionally have 4th edition hardcovers...

www.hamiltonbooks.com

~throwi

Cabala,

Essentially, remainder books are overstock from stores (returned to publisher) or extra copies left over (printed) for an under-performing title.  Often, these come with the red or black stripe on the pages or through the isbn13.  Generally, they are considered 'good' condition, not 'shopworn' (unless stated).  I have many books in my personal library that are remainders - they are fine.  I wouldn't consider most remainder books for collections however.

I can't speak to Salvatore's work, but I know he is a good seller due to the price of his books (by the the time they come to us).   Our company specializes in low-cost remainder product.  You won't find any current titles from the NY best seller list at our site!

One of our remainder vendors gets a lot of WotC backstock - waiting for the 5e stuff to show up on the buy lists...  With my employee discount, I get a few copies of everything!  

~throwi

There is a store near to me that buys in bulk the items that have been lost in the mail.  There are actually large, government auctions where they sell off all the stuff they misplace on our behalf.  

This store has a *HUGE* variety of stuff.  So many people were going in there, scanning the books and then reselling them though that the owner of the store started doing it as well.  He now sells a ton on Ebay too.  The only good thing is that 99.9% of the people in my area have zero interest in gaming so they pass right over those.  I've picked up some very nice bargains that way.    The sad part is that there are rarely newer items and some gamer out there is upset that the book he ordered never shows.

I picked this group up about a week or so ago.  The lot was less than $30 -



As an interesting note, the two on the bottom left, still in original shrink, are from a failed Kickstarter where it appears that most of the backers claim to have never received the books although the guy who produced them claims to have shipped at least some of them.  I have at least two of these missing books.  For them to be where I purchased them, they are likely from a lost mailing. He may have been, at least partially, the victim of a postal service mishap.   

I did try his web site but it is now defunct and I can't contact him through his Kickstarter page.  Each time I try it kicks me back to his campaign page.  I'm not sure if its because I wasn't a backer or if he has them blocked now.

Myth & Magic is the Kickstarter if anyone was involved or knows the author.

I haven't opened one yet, but they appear to be very nice books.

Updated - I did a bit more reading on the Kickstarter and it does appear to have been very mismanaged with poor communication.  I believe the creator is still working to fulfill some of the scope but I doubt it will ever be up to par with its original goals.  The backers don't appear to have the current contact information either.

misterspock wrote in Finding hardcover AD&D fiction novels at thrift stores:

cdenham wrote in Finding hardcover AD&D fiction novels at thrift stores:There is a store near to me that buys in bulk the items that have been lost in the mail.  There are actually large, government auctions where they sell off all the stuff they misplace on our behalf.  

is that in the town of Scottsboro?

Close! I go to that place in Scottsboro occasionally but rarely find any deals.  It is actually Mike's Merchandise in Guntersville.  If anyone is in the area and want to kill some perfectly good time, it's in an old factory downtown that has been turned into huge collection of oddball items.