Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Who will insure my book

Now the wonderful thing is that Calgary Library Services clear books from their shelves very often. One day last year I was in there and found some wonderful 'gifts' on the For Sale table.
I picked up the book:-
Quilt of Belonging a wonderfully multicultural flavoured book about making... "The largest collaborative work of textile art to be created on a national scale with 263 squares representing 71 Aboriginal groups and 192 immigrant nationalities found in Canada... what a treasure...
Little did I know that on that day I would pick up a different type of treasure... since I also found Embroidery Stitches by Mary Webb.  I took them over to the counter where the librarian suggested I pick up two more books so that instead of paying (only) C$1 each for the books I would need to pay merely 50cents each... ie., half price.
So I went back and picked up:-
Quiltmaking by Hand by Jinny Beyer and Dancing quilts by Debbie Bowles.  The latter is the only book of the four that needs any tender care... the others are in excellent condition.
I just got this email from a friend. (thanks Mona).



Product Image 
Available from these sellers.
6 Used & New from CDN$ 567.04



So I find that my 50 cents was extremely well-spent as this book now goes for nearly C$500 on Amazon.Ca.
My stitching friend, has borrowed my copy, I think she might well be considering running off to South America with it.
So I thought I would check the 'value' of the other books and found that Quiltmaking by hand can fetch... C$131




Perhaps the library authorities would do well to check the value of their stock in these times of austerity (= 'efficiency' of D. Cameron).

2 comments:

arlee said...

I'd REALLY like to know *how* they come up with some of those prices! I've seen utter crap this expensive and truly great ones that are going for 3 bucks--what gives????

Karin Millson said...

The sad thing to me was that Calgary Public Library gave it away.
The happy thing to me was that they gave it to me!
Through me, this little book has been seen and handled by many... so I guess that is a good thing too.