It’s For the School House!!
As I paced around my house trying to figure out how to relieve my cabin fever I stopped at the 30 or so boxes of books that we never unpacked when we moved back. Every now and then Ben or I will mention that we really needed to get some bookcases (we had built-ins in our last house). Many of our books are texts books from long ago (twelve plus years). Mine are all theatre related so plays, critical theory, and a lot of Shakespeare. Ben’s are all kinds of physics, engineering and so forth. I just file all these things under the heading “science.” I’ve been looking for ways to earmark some funds for the school house and I’ve spent a lot of time reading blogs about ways to make additional income. I thought, well I’ll see if these are worth anything.
comic books, “science” books, some of the boxes of books we’re (Ben is) keeping, yes that is a slide whistle….
A week later I’ve boxed up about $100 worth of textbooks, DVDs and CDs and shipped them out! I would have more but I was rapidly reminded that Ben is A GIANT HOARDER. He says he prefers the term “archivist.” If I even come near one of his very heavy textbooks with the slightest thought of seeing how much it’s worth it’s immediately snatched away from me. I briefly mentioned all the video games he has that he never plays anymore and was told that he’s saving them for Philip….to which I responded those games are inappropriate and Philip will not be playing them any time soon if ever …..I also mentioned those two giant boxes of comics books in our closet and I think I gave him heart palpitations. Alas….I relented for now. Once I’m through here I’m going on to Gramp and Em’s house. After five kids they have their share of video games, books, and CDs that I’m going to try to pry out of their hands. My mantra will be “It’s for the school house!”
Books I’m not Selling
The flip side of this is while I’m decluttering here at my house I’ve also inherited about 20 or so books that we saved from the school house. I’m not sure if any of them will be worth much money (they’re pretty beat up) and I don’t think Gramp will be able to part with many of them. But we think they’re cool anyways. Here’s a round up of the goodies.
Here is the front cover, title page, interior and back cover of a children’s book from the 1930’s- this one was in pretty good shape with all the pages included.
We pulled some of the books out of the tiny attic above the addition, many of them had this inscription on the first page “This book belongs to the Library of school district No. 11 Centre Falls Town of Greenwich N.Y. Oct – 31 1902. Luke pointed out “oooo spooky it’s Halloween” Which was right about the time this fall when we found them.
We found a lot of these American Junior Red Cross magazines from the 1940’s and will be sharing more about them and the Red Cross’s role in schools in a later post.
Virtual Reality
Luke had all the old books at his apartment so I took a trip to check them out. He recently got a Virtual Reality head set. If you’ve seen the About Us page you know that Luke is the project historian, he apparently also enjoys looking into the future. I’m not sure I’m ready for it. Check out this vid!
Selling Stuff Online
Here’s a link to the article I read on the Penny Hoarder that got me hooked on selling my old stuff. The two websites I’ve used so far are Decluttr and Bookfinder.
Gramp's Old School 
If you want to know the worth of some of the books, stop at the owl pen book store down the road from my home. When we moved into the house in early 1990’s there was a ton of books there. Shane and his cousin to the books down the road to the Owl Pen in a little red wagon. They bought everyone of them and one book they got a whooping $100 for! not bad for a 6 yr old !
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