Collective minds

Okay, so this is a duplication of something I wrote a couple of years ago elsewhere. It's a good foreword to my little obsession that is collecting anything Chalet school related (as well as other British schoolgirl story collections and series). It gives good context to the posts I have on the back burner about the current state of affairs, that I hope to get around to finishing and publishing, one of these days.

____Oct 2006____

When I first started seriously collecting my Chalet series books (and, from there, all printed matter associated with the series, such as 'fill-in' books and biographies and other series by EBD that referenced characters from the Chalet series), eBay was my primary source for acquisition. This was before the GGBP started reprinting the hardback version of the series in trade paperback format (the paperbacks published by Armada and HarperCollins were slightly to severely abridged, depending on the book), so there were a lot of serious collectors who turned to eBay as one source--sometimes their only source--of finding the books. This was especially true for collectors not living in the U.K., who didn't have the luxury of coming across the books at jumble sales or even, for the earlier books in the series, in pristine reprinted paperback format at the local WH Smith.

After a while I got to know the IDs of the people who were building up their collections, like me, as well as the resellers who would put up their surplus copies of the more readily available books for bidding. The resellers also started, around late 1999, to list the rarer paperbacks and even hardbacks, after seeing--as we all did--the bidding frenzy that went on over those particular books. I remember watching the 'Chalet Series-Rare Item!' auctions with as much concern as the ones I was participating in; as a beginning collector, the prices were too steep for me and I figured I'd concentrate on building up what I could of the series through the cheaper paperbacks, before looking at the buying the rarer ones (forget about hardbacks; the prices were way too high and they come up for bid far too infrequently to make it seem like a worthwhile effort). Even so, I'd look at the rare items listings and watch, with a nervous thrill, as a small group of people would battle it back and forth right until the very end, driving up the price higher and higher. I still remember how I watched that first listed paperback copy of "The Chalet School Reunion" sell for $74.00. I could almost hear the gasp from the other people who were no doubt tracking the bids and wondering who the lucky--and insane--winner was.

***

Right from the very beginning, if I ever got outbid on an item (and I frequently did; it took me a while to catch on to what the general going price was for each book), I would check out the ID of the person who outbid and see what else they had purchased before. I wanted to know why they were interested in that book: were they an avid Chalet collector or just a a general collector of girls' school series? Was it someone who was starting out like me? Given that I only bid on paperbacks in new or as new condition--no breaks on the spine being a key requirement of the book I was willing to purchase--I knew the person outbidding me was also, like me, as interested in the condition of the book as in buying the book itself. Which meant they were either an anal beginner collector like me, or someone replacing older, more battered versions of their possibly completed collection. I could even tell, in some cases, how far along the series some of the people were, because we all started to follow a certain pattern when it came to choosing which items to bid on. Although I never liked being outbid, I minded much less when it was one of my 'fellow' collectors; I knew that the book would be as much cared for and enjoyed as if I had bought it myself. Occasionally, though, I would get into a bidding war with someone whose profile would baffle me as to their interest in the book. There'd be no purchases to indicate this person had ever had an interest in the series, or sometimes even books, prior to this bid. Why, I'd wonder, were they so gung-ho on getting this particular book? Was it for someone else? Was it someone who typically bought their books elsewhere and had just decided to use eBay this once? More importantly, why didn't they stop upping the price--didn't they know I deserved the book more than they did?!

***

In August of 2000, right before I was leaving for my wedding, the unthinkable miracle happened and I was able to purchase the entire series in paperback format from someone who had decided to list it as one bulk item on eBay. I'd already collected a little over a third of the series by then, but I didn't care: this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. One that I almost didn't get to take, either; I had been so busy the weeks leading up to the wedding, between doubling up on my MBA classes so I could take time off for the honeymoon, and a huge project at work and, well, the wedding planning itself, that I'd stopped looking at eBay for about a couple of months. On the morning of my wedding, I was ready and dressed by 9:30AM (I did my own hair and makeup, which is to say there wasn't a lot to do) and was waiting around, with my family, for L. and his family to show up, so we could do the more formal pictures before the wedding. I needed something to do to kill time so I started surfing and checking out eBay. Lo and behold, there was the item. I sat there for about a minute, wondering if I should try outbidding the latest offer. The doorbell rang, my sister yelled for me to get off the computer and get ready to get married, and with about 30 seconds left on the auction, I bid the absolutely largest amount I felt comfortable with, hit okay, turned off the monitor, and ran downstairs. It wasn't until later that night, when we were back from the reception and packing for the trip to Mexico, that I remembered to check and saw that I'd won. L. says he's not sure what I was happier about that day: that the wedding had gone off without a hitch or that I won the entire series in one fell swoop. I suspect he knows the true the answer to that.

***

I use eBay a lot less these days, because I buy all the GGBP reprints and fillers from a reseller I got to know through eBay. I've also pretty much bought all the related and associated books from either her or my acquaintance R.--who I also met through eBay and who sells secondhand books as a hobby--or directly from the publishers. There are still a few related books, though, that though reprinted by GGBP several years ago, are not available through any resellers (GGBP has no plans to reprint for the foreseeable future) and for those I still check eBay once in a while to see if anyone has decided to give them up from their own private collection. I've got two right now that I'm bidding on, except that I got outbid about an hour ago. I'm a seasoned hand at this and I am pretty sure I will get them in the end, although probably for the very highest limit of what I am willing to pay, unfortunately. But I really want to know is: why does someone who is fixated with Acorn Computers, especially the BBC Micro, want to buy a book about British schoolgirls from the 1930s?

10/14/06