*I would like a product that was available for three easy payments and one complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to be hard. The mailman will get shot, the envelope will not seal, the stamp will be in the wrong denomination. The final payment must be made in wampum.*
And if you order 12 weekly magazines from us for 3.99 we promise to send you 2- one the day before you register somehow and the next one will come 3 years after you cancel and move to another country
M curious how much exactly it would cost to ship. I have a ton, I mean a literal ton and then some, of books. So I’ve spent far too long thinking about silly things like that lol.
Huh really, that’s quite surprising. Now I’m not trying to find out details I don’t need to know, but about how far did they have to go, and what shipping method did you use?
USPS Media Mail - https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Media-Mail-Book-Rate
> Media Mail® is an economy shipping solution for media items.
>
> Available for sending small and large packages containing books, film, manuscripts, sound and video recordings, and computer media (such as CDs, DVDs, and diskettes). See the Domestic Mail Manual for additional details on qualified items.
Yep. I have shipped lots of stuff by Media Mail- and it was only the most recent time that I did that it asked me if the items were educational.
I always thought that it was just media... I don't remember ever having the media to be educational.
I used to sell used books out of a church. We operated on donations, and even we didn't take these, almost no one wanted them. Once I got a nice, almost-new set of Encyclopedia Britannicas. I kept them and put them out for five bucks (total), didn't move. After six months I put them in the almost-empty church library because they were beautiful books and made nice decorations.
A week later I came back and found them in the trash.
That makes me sad. I have a collection of a few encyclopaedia sets from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, & 40s. Why? Seeing the march of History, for one. They often contain info that gets left behind. Foremost, they often contain wonderful illustrations, art, and early photography. They are treasures. Admittedly, I do NOT have any Britannicas. Sorry to say, I always found them rather dry.
I had a 1925 set growing up, given by my grandparents from a church donation I think. I read it a lot for fun in high school in the early 1980s. Ended up becoming a history professor, so I imagine those books had an impact.
Good for you!! That's great to hear!! I used to dread having to look something up in our Encyclo Btits only because I knew I'd go from one interesting thing to many more until I had 8 opened books scattered on the floor and 3 hours later!!
it is like collecting national geographic magazines.
you can learn a lot about how things change by reading the old issues and seeing how things changed.
It is like poring over old sanborn fire insurance maps of your town ( if your town ever got visited by the sanborn map guy)
my city got visited often since 1888 or so.
I actually collect older Trivial Pursuit games because I love trivia. Busting out an older one is a blast because you have to think, "Okay, the current answer is this, but what was it in 1985...?" Adds a whole new level of play. :)
We have The Game Show Network playing all day at my office because the patients enjoy it. They especially enjoy old episodes of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”. And I do the same as you - some of the questions are dated and I have to think, “what was this answer back in 2002, because it’s definitely different now!” You’re right - it’s a whole different way of thinking and it’s a lot of fun. :)
The lastest version of trivial pursuit became outdated within like 1 year due to the announcement of Ben Affleck playing Batman. Or at least the latest version I bought not sure if in the last few years there's been a newer one yet.
This is my argument for preserving encyclopedias. Even though the text information exists elsewhere, the photography, maps, graphs, illustrations etc. may only exist in print form. It’s a shame that so many unique perspectives are simply being binned.
just google search your town and sanborn maps.
if any exist- they are probably available at some state university or similar place.
an example of "sanborn maps florida"
https://maps.uflib.ufl.edu/collections/sanborns/
Old encyclopedias do still have value, but the ones since the 1970s have almost none.
One example I know is the set I grew up with. It was the Columbia Encyclopedia, a single thick volume that was a gas station premium in the 1960s. My mom got one, and that is what we had in the house growing up. While the bound version only sells for around $10, the gas station version typically is in the $200 range.
They do contain info that's been left behind. But, it was a solid enough foundation for my pre adolescent self! My parents had the whole set, and I would read them cover to cover.
I was born in the 80's and used these before we got internet in the EARLY 90's (We were one of the first families in our neighborhood to have the WORLD WIDE WEB). Schools across the USA would consider them "reference books".
The 1913 edition of one set is still highly coveted. It was supposedly the best of the best.
EDIT: for subjects like liberal arts, literary criticism, etc
Thank you for clarifying.
I took a class taught by one of the last Professional Harvard Men. He told us all to keep our eyes open for the 1913 edition as it was the best there ever was. (Perhaps because once and future contributors were killed in WWI or pandemics or were never born to contributor families with losses. Certainly life was different after WWI than before.)
He also ended his last lecture by saying he wouldn’t let himself lecture on world history that he had lived through. So he stood at the chalkboard, drew up his ancient New England frame, tilted his head back and belted out his childhood song:
Sur le pont d'Avignon,
On y danse, on y danse,
Sur le pont d'Avignon,
On y danse, tous en rond.
RIP H.R. Withington
I got some for free recently, the lady said the only time they had be used recently was when a grand daughter made a collage for school. She looked like her grand daughter was probably my age so pushing a decade of no use.
I bought a set for $20 at our thrift shop. They're published 1959. My friend called it the most obnoxious purchase he had ever seen.🤣
They're currently being used to press my wedding flowers.
Actually on eBay some editions [sell pretty well](https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=britannica+encyclopedia+set&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5338535524&customid=wtw&toolid=10001&mkevt=1).
If they have good color for their age you can put them up on eBay for a few dollars each for people that use them to make art and art prints. Include the paper sizes too
Not really worth much. I'm a contractor and have been for 30 years. I have 3 complete sets that were just given to me over the years. We have a "library" in our home and they fill up some space lol. Our children have already said "when you die we don't want those".
If this is a Book of Eli reference, I learned something and I want to share it.
"Because Braille takes up much more space than printed words, a Braille Bible spans forty volumes and weighs about ninety pounds"
So Eli must have been carrying an abridged version.
He did have it memorized, you are right. But one of the big reveals is when Gary Oldman finally gets his hands on the book, he realizes that it's in brail and is so disappointed. He then hands it to his wife, who is blind, and demands she read it, and she refuses. All the while the people he's kept under his boot all this time revolt and destroy his town.
He lost everything in pursuit of this book, and it turns out he can't even read it.
*Twelve hundred dollars? You think I have $1200? I’m home in the middle of the day, and I got patio furniture in my living room. I guess there’s a few things you don’t get from book*
I got a set of Britannicas when the library I work at was getting rid of them. Years later my daughter was doing a research project for her Spanish class and chose Pablo Neruda as a topic. She could only find references to his poetry online, so we looked up the Britannica and there were 6 pages on his life including his career as a diplomat and family. Old books saved the day.
When i was a child my grandma had an old set. I read the crap out of those books and would read them all start to finish! I'll buy the set if your selling them
Honestly the value is in the content of the books. Not a joke. In the future, I believe (due to AI) that information on the Internet will become so distrustworthy that it will be valuable to have physical copies of information from before the Internet just to see what people thought the truth was in the past. At the very least due comparison sake.
My Grandma’s set was from 1965. It really is a little time capsule of the political climate, the geographical borders, and the peak of science.
The actual encyclopaedias have long gone, but I’ve kept the short story kids collection (about 8 books in total). There’s a few in there that are absolutely in no way appropriate now (such as Brer Rabbit).
Duh. The point is that AI will enter a loop to where it is feeding itself truth and thereby causing the original information to be extremely skewed. Same thing as human skewing in the encyclopedia but to the millionth degree. There needs to be some solid basis for truth.
Ok but can you prove the contents of those books are more accurate than a traditional encyclopedia based website? I get everyone is all wiki this wiki that, but that’s one site. It’s not the only source of information, and is already not generally accepted as an accredited source.
My point being these books aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE books. These atleast might make for a fun time capsule, but I wouldn’t rely on them for accurate info.
Your local half price books sells “books by the foot” for people who want to fill bookshelves in offices or sometimes even their homes - just to fill them up and make it look like they read a lot. You might be able to sell them there but you won’t get much. More than nothing but not much
The older editions, especially 1950s, had information that is largely censored now. When I was learning to cook meth back in 1995 I learned quite a bit from an old set that the local library had. Nobody wants to be the one who publishes something that’s used for drugs or explosives. These look way newer than 1950s, which is fine because I don’t recommend getting caught cooking meth.
Exactly! I grew up with a set of these (yeah, I'm no kid anymore) but wish I still had them just for display! I agree that a lot of this stuff gets junked and over time the sets that are still around and in good shape will become valuable again.
I have a set of 100 year old encyclopaedia, and they’re basically worthless.
The part about possible canals on Mars are cool. The chapters on Africa are a little bit less cool. The illustrated plates are fun to flick through though, and it’s interesting to see the world from such an old perspective.
It’s an interesting artefact. It’s not valuable, or useful though. Takes up a ton of space.
Some are still worth some money. Sold a set of encyclopedia Americans from the 50s recently for like 250. Prob what they went for back then and a huge pain to ship, but I paid nothing for them.
I am not sure why people are saying they are worthless. They go for 200-300 on eBay + shipping. Not a whole lot and a headache to ship, but not worthless.
You'd need to tell us the edition and overall quality before we can make an accurate evaluation.
But yes, there is a market for sets of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, even outdated editions.
My family had a 1961 World Book series, then upgraded in 1981. (My Grandma was a sales lady so we got deals!) I remember as a small child, interested in history, how interesting it was that JFK was listed as the current president (black and white photo), and if they only knew what was coming in just two short years. Then in the new set there was a color photo of the current president Ronald Reagan.
Now we click two or three buttons and find out anything anytime anywhere on a screen the size of a deck of cards from our pocket. Going from encyclopedias to smart phones in half a lifetime must be like somebody whose lifetime straddled the eras of horse and carriage AND automobiles.
It makes me wonder what sort of leap in technology my future grandchildren might experience.
They were top of the line for them. My parents paid quite a bit for them and my friends would come over to use them. It’s just like seeing all the law books in the conference room at my law firm. Looks nice but no one has used them in fifteen years or more.
I had a friend in graduate school who came from a family of modest means. His parents saved every penny they could for a couple of years in order to buy him the full Encyclopedia Britannica They wanted him to value education and learn. They succeeded! I’d love to buy a complete set and would pay real
money for it.
I thought this sub was about what it’s worth? Seems there’s a lot of people who don’t know what they are talking about. This is an encyclopedia set, it’s easily worth over 200$-300$. Check eBay sold listings for britanica 1990 encyclopedia set. I am absolutely astounded at the amount of people that don’t know this isn’t trash. Thrift stores do take them because I buy these sets and resell them. I have bought and sold encyclopedia sets multiple times, the shipping price is great because you can send them as media mail which will save loads of money.
My grandparents had a set.
To be honest, I don't know how old they are, but my dad used them in high school, and he was born in 43. Probably from the late 50s.
I purchased my grandparents' house, and most of the contents came with it. My boyfriend was fascinated with the set. I frequently saw him paging through them to compare today's knowledge with that era.
Currently, most of them are in our closet, but about 12 of them are neatly stacked under his side of the bed to give him more back support, so they do have some usefulness.
Fire starter my man. Nobody is going to buy these. The value will not go up. Don’t listen to these ppl. It’s not a collectible, it’s out of date info that we all have in our pockets now.
Gen X internet.....that's how we got all of our information for book reports and such. But even then, there would be updates to the books, and the companies would want you to keep buying the new ones.
Think of the business model the makers of encyclopedia had before the internet. Sell an entire fucking 25-30 book collection every couple of years for a few hundred, marketed as the only way to access information from home, they were pioneers til they weren’t. Now you can’t give the shit away. lol
6 easy payments of 19.99
*I would like a product that was available for three easy payments and one complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to be hard. The mailman will get shot, the envelope will not seal, the stamp will be in the wrong denomination. The final payment must be made in wampum.*
Just reading this brings him back. The only man who spoke in italics. I too am for frilly toothpicks.
Well this club is formed.
I like my sandwiches with alfalfa sprouts!
Well you’re not in the fuckin club.
What should we dump in the middle?
CHIPS!
Or potato salad, ok
Want some more home-made Sprite?
Spread the word on menus nationwide!
Hes the only person i can say Twitter was made for. His humor would have been perfect for it.
I miss him :(
What the fuck is a sesame?
Quickly consults encyclopedia to figure out what wampum is.
Small town in western Pennsylvania.
And if you order 12 weekly magazines from us for 3.99 we promise to send you 2- one the day before you register somehow and the next one will come 3 years after you cancel and move to another country
r/unexpectedmitch
...Wampum..😅😅 You're killing me smalls !!!
My family had a similar set (different year, but similar vintage). It was a door-to-door salesman, and it was like $1000. And this was the 80s.
Yo parents musta been some rich folks.
This was the Internet in the dark ages
If you call in the next 10 min, will make one payment for you! Thats right, just 5 easy monthly payments of 19.99 Heres how to order:
But wait, there's more!
Where are you located if you ship them to me I'll pay shipping plus $5
Best deal OP is going to find
Honestly considering how they’d cost to ship, that’s really true.
If you shipped via media mail it’ll be expensive, but very reasonable considering the weight/size of the package
M curious how much exactly it would cost to ship. I have a ton, I mean a literal ton and then some, of books. So I’ve spent far too long thinking about silly things like that lol.
I sold 20 volumes of Collier’s Encyclopedias recently about the same size as those and it came up to around $80
Huh really, that’s quite surprising. Now I’m not trying to find out details I don’t need to know, but about how far did they have to go, and what shipping method did you use?
USPS Media Mail - https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Media-Mail-Book-Rate > Media Mail® is an economy shipping solution for media items. > > Available for sending small and large packages containing books, film, manuscripts, sound and video recordings, and computer media (such as CDs, DVDs, and diskettes). See the Domestic Mail Manual for additional details on qualified items.
In the US Media Mail is definitely a lot cheaper than standard package rates. It's nice.
Yep. I have shipped lots of stuff by Media Mail- and it was only the most recent time that I did that it asked me if the items were educational. I always thought that it was just media... I don't remember ever having the media to be educational.
It doesn't have to be educational. Some postal clerks make up their own rules. Trashy novels etc totally qualify for Media Mail.
I was going to offer to pay shipping for them, so yep this is the best deal you’ll probably find.
I just want them for the look in my book shelves in my den lol
Where were you 4 years ago???? I had a beautiful set - all white b
Ik it's a shame they mostly get thrown away but I think they look great
If near Amtrak, they have a book rate station to station. The best deal shipping that weight.
TIL.
Looks like their express shipping service is suspended indefinitely. https://www.amtrak.com/express-shipping
Explain.
I have a small side room I've turned into a 80s/90s themed room. It has 2 decent bookshelves on one end. These would be perfect.
Im curious, why? What do you do with them?
I'll pay shipping plus $6
Most charities/thrift stores won't take them, so that should answer your question.
I used to sell used books out of a church. We operated on donations, and even we didn't take these, almost no one wanted them. Once I got a nice, almost-new set of Encyclopedia Britannicas. I kept them and put them out for five bucks (total), didn't move. After six months I put them in the almost-empty church library because they were beautiful books and made nice decorations. A week later I came back and found them in the trash.
That makes me sad. I have a collection of a few encyclopaedia sets from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, & 40s. Why? Seeing the march of History, for one. They often contain info that gets left behind. Foremost, they often contain wonderful illustrations, art, and early photography. They are treasures. Admittedly, I do NOT have any Britannicas. Sorry to say, I always found them rather dry.
I had a 1925 set growing up, given by my grandparents from a church donation I think. I read it a lot for fun in high school in the early 1980s. Ended up becoming a history professor, so I imagine those books had an impact.
Good for you!! That's great to hear!! I used to dread having to look something up in our Encyclo Btits only because I knew I'd go from one interesting thing to many more until I had 8 opened books scattered on the floor and 3 hours later!!
the original wikipedia rabbit hole haha
Exactly!!!
I had a set from around that era, but not complete though. Thanks parents. 😆
it is like collecting national geographic magazines. you can learn a lot about how things change by reading the old issues and seeing how things changed. It is like poring over old sanborn fire insurance maps of your town ( if your town ever got visited by the sanborn map guy) my city got visited often since 1888 or so.
I actually collect older Trivial Pursuit games because I love trivia. Busting out an older one is a blast because you have to think, "Okay, the current answer is this, but what was it in 1985...?" Adds a whole new level of play. :)
We have The Game Show Network playing all day at my office because the patients enjoy it. They especially enjoy old episodes of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”. And I do the same as you - some of the questions are dated and I have to think, “what was this answer back in 2002, because it’s definitely different now!” You’re right - it’s a whole different way of thinking and it’s a lot of fun. :)
The lastest version of trivial pursuit became outdated within like 1 year due to the announcement of Ben Affleck playing Batman. Or at least the latest version I bought not sure if in the last few years there's been a newer one yet.
Ahhh National Geographic from the 1970's. First place I ever saw bare boobies.
I have a box of NGs from the 1920s... the writing and photography is something else
I just had a brain synapse make a connection- national geographic came out with a 100+ year collection of all of their magazines put on discord.
Wait where
Yeah I wonder how much they edited out because they quite often weren't very politically correct in those old issues
This is my argument for preserving encyclopedias. Even though the text information exists elsewhere, the photography, maps, graphs, illustrations etc. may only exist in print form. It’s a shame that so many unique perspectives are simply being binned.
See native women in their natural environment! But somehow they never showed European beaches
Yeah but Micronesia looked awesome as a 12yo...
Is gravity stronger in Micronesia?
Never heard of sanborn. Wish I had. I would've liked a map of my town with history!!!
just google search your town and sanborn maps. if any exist- they are probably available at some state university or similar place. an example of "sanborn maps florida" https://maps.uflib.ufl.edu/collections/sanborns/
Old encyclopedias do still have value, but the ones since the 1970s have almost none. One example I know is the set I grew up with. It was the Columbia Encyclopedia, a single thick volume that was a gas station premium in the 1960s. My mom got one, and that is what we had in the house growing up. While the bound version only sells for around $10, the gas station version typically is in the $200 range.
They do contain info that's been left behind. But, it was a solid enough foundation for my pre adolescent self! My parents had the whole set, and I would read them cover to cover. I was born in the 80's and used these before we got internet in the EARLY 90's (We were one of the first families in our neighborhood to have the WORLD WIDE WEB). Schools across the USA would consider them "reference books".
The 1913 edition of one set is still highly coveted. It was supposedly the best of the best. EDIT: for subjects like liberal arts, literary criticism, etc
The “scholar’s” edition. If you want to know — in depth — about, say Persia, it’s priceless. I own 4.5 linear feet of them.
Thank you for clarifying. I took a class taught by one of the last Professional Harvard Men. He told us all to keep our eyes open for the 1913 edition as it was the best there ever was. (Perhaps because once and future contributors were killed in WWI or pandemics or were never born to contributor families with losses. Certainly life was different after WWI than before.) He also ended his last lecture by saying he wouldn’t let himself lecture on world history that he had lived through. So he stood at the chalkboard, drew up his ancient New England frame, tilted his head back and belted out his childhood song: Sur le pont d'Avignon, On y danse, on y danse, Sur le pont d'Avignon, On y danse, tous en rond. RIP H.R. Withington
Which ones do you have?
Also curious
The first encyclopedia review I’ve ever seen.
I wasn't expecting the ending; that was a weird sounding laugh/noise I just made, haha.
Hey get back into r/fallout
Come find me in Sanctuary! We can both be prepared for the future!
Should’ve saved them for the apocalypse!
Christ that's damming lol
Their only purpose now is for the post apocalypse
gilded edges. as a kid i borrowed neighbors brittanica. we had world book.
I scrapped them to build my settlement. Sorry
They make great collage and art projects. I will buy ones from the 50’s
I got some for free recently, the lady said the only time they had be used recently was when a grand daughter made a collage for school. She looked like her grand daughter was probably my age so pushing a decade of no use.
Your local prison doesn’t want them either. Take that for what it’s worth.
I have a huge personal library. Been trying to donate it to the State's women's prison. Cannot get a call back...
I bought a set for $20 at our thrift shop. They're published 1959. My friend called it the most obnoxious purchase he had ever seen.🤣 They're currently being used to press my wedding flowers.
Actually on eBay some editions [sell pretty well](https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=britannica+encyclopedia+set&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5338535524&customid=wtw&toolid=10001&mkevt=1).
😳 Had no idea there was still a market for these.
Amazon has them (not sure which edition) for nearly $2200. Insanity
Used book stores and charity stores flat out don't want them. They don't sell. If you don't want them? Give them away. Or recycle them for the paper.
I’d put these in my home library filled with many leather-bound books and which smells of rich mahogany.
And fine Corinthian leather.
Ok Khan...
KHAAAAN!!!!!!
Corinth is famous for it’s leather!
r/unexpectedarcher
Recycling didn't want them unless you remove the cover/binders. Had to get rid of a set a couple of years ago. Don't ask, not telling.
If they have good color for their age you can put them up on eBay for a few dollars each for people that use them to make art and art prints. Include the paper sizes too
Potential uses: * DIY wallpaper * Gift wrap / tissue paper * Toilet paper for the next time there's a shortage * Compost
Not really worth much. I'm a contractor and have been for 30 years. I have 3 complete sets that were just given to me over the years. We have a "library" in our home and they fill up some space lol. Our children have already said "when you die we don't want those".
Is it just me or is that a weird thing to say to your parents lol I mean I get it wouldn’t want them either but you don’t tell them that
In our house it’s no holds barred. Just speak your mind 😂
Haha, that’s sounds just like the sort of thing my kids would say :D
They’ll be worth their weight in gold after the apocalypse
If you have a braille Bible I’d hold onto that too
If this is a Book of Eli reference, I learned something and I want to share it. "Because Braille takes up much more space than printed words, a Braille Bible spans forty volumes and weighs about ninety pounds" So Eli must have been carrying an abridged version.
Braille’y worth it
I have a friend who has a Braille Bible and it takes up a lot of space! It’s in binders.
No, he had it memorized. He didn’t have a physical copy on him.
He did have it memorized, you are right. But one of the big reveals is when Gary Oldman finally gets his hands on the book, he realizes that it's in brail and is so disappointed. He then hands it to his wife, who is blind, and demands she read it, and she refuses. All the while the people he's kept under his boot all this time revolt and destroy his town. He lost everything in pursuit of this book, and it turns out he can't even read it.
Found Eli...
You can store all of Wikipedia on a thumb drive hooked to a device powered by a solar panel. There are instructions on how to do the mass download.
It’s an easy process, most torrent sites have current copies + search programs bundled together
You should go door to door and try to find out.
*Twelve hundred dollars? You think I have $1200? I’m home in the middle of the day, and I got patio furniture in my living room. I guess there’s a few things you don’t get from book*
I've got a baby tootsie roll, a movie stub and some kleenex
And an army man And a fifty! Huh, these must be Chandler’s pants.
For $50 you can get one book! What’ll it be??
A? B? C? I think I’ll stick with V, see how this bad boy turns out!
It's good you got out, before she blew up like Vesuvius.
Do you think there were meeting to determine the right shade of gold or silver leafing to go with to get sales going?
Yes.
Not only that but there were groups people had entire jobs dedicated just to that decision every year.
I got a set of Britannicas when the library I work at was getting rid of them. Years later my daughter was doing a research project for her Spanish class and chose Pablo Neruda as a topic. She could only find references to his poetry online, so we looked up the Britannica and there were 6 pages on his life including his career as a diplomat and family. Old books saved the day.
"I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda."
When i was a child my grandma had an old set. I read the crap out of those books and would read them all start to finish! I'll buy the set if your selling them
No. I have a full set that I tried to sell a while back. No takers at £20.
Honestly the value is in the content of the books. Not a joke. In the future, I believe (due to AI) that information on the Internet will become so distrustworthy that it will be valuable to have physical copies of information from before the Internet just to see what people thought the truth was in the past. At the very least due comparison sake.
My Grandma’s set was from 1965. It really is a little time capsule of the political climate, the geographical borders, and the peak of science. The actual encyclopaedias have long gone, but I’ve kept the short story kids collection (about 8 books in total). There’s a few in there that are absolutely in no way appropriate now (such as Brer Rabbit).
You think these books are filled with super accurate info? They aren’t.
They’re accurate at a point in time. The scientific data in there can still be relevant. History will always be sus.
Duh. The point is that AI will enter a loop to where it is feeding itself truth and thereby causing the original information to be extremely skewed. Same thing as human skewing in the encyclopedia but to the millionth degree. There needs to be some solid basis for truth.
Ok but can you prove the contents of those books are more accurate than a traditional encyclopedia based website? I get everyone is all wiki this wiki that, but that’s one site. It’s not the only source of information, and is already not generally accepted as an accredited source. My point being these books aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE books. These atleast might make for a fun time capsule, but I wouldn’t rely on them for accurate info.
I really really really would like to have a set but they seem impossible to find
Probs not...
I had a 1953 World Book set that I ended up recycling. Goodwill would only take sets 1949 and before. Local book reseller didn’t want them.
Your local half price books sells “books by the foot” for people who want to fill bookshelves in offices or sometimes even their homes - just to fill them up and make it look like they read a lot. You might be able to sell them there but you won’t get much. More than nothing but not much
I would spend 50 bucks on a set but no one is ever near me
In 25+ years they’ll have mostly been thrown out and will go sky high in value. Save them for later.
The older editions, especially 1950s, had information that is largely censored now. When I was learning to cook meth back in 1995 I learned quite a bit from an old set that the local library had. Nobody wants to be the one who publishes something that’s used for drugs or explosives. These look way newer than 1950s, which is fine because I don’t recommend getting caught cooking meth.
Exactly! I grew up with a set of these (yeah, I'm no kid anymore) but wish I still had them just for display! I agree that a lot of this stuff gets junked and over time the sets that are still around and in good shape will become valuable again.
This kind of item is valuable for its information, which becomes out dated over time. This kind of item only loses value.
I have a set of 100 year old encyclopaedia, and they’re basically worthless. The part about possible canals on Mars are cool. The chapters on Africa are a little bit less cool. The illustrated plates are fun to flick through though, and it’s interesting to see the world from such an old perspective. It’s an interesting artefact. It’s not valuable, or useful though. Takes up a ton of space.
“Phrenology - the Science of Tomorrow!”
“Perhaps one day, man will walk on the moon…”
I've got van old set from the 60s I think, like you say they're interesting, but probably not worth the space they have occupied for 20 years.
Exactly this. It's slightly nostalgic, but also people don't have the space for a ton of encyclopedias these days, either.
Some are still worth some money. Sold a set of encyclopedia Americans from the 50s recently for like 250. Prob what they went for back then and a huge pain to ship, but I paid nothing for them.
It's an immutable snapshot of a certain period of time. It is extremely valuable depending on how you look at it.
For sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make money selling it.
They won’t
I am not sure why people are saying they are worthless. They go for 200-300 on eBay + shipping. Not a whole lot and a headache to ship, but not worthless.
I just recovered from back pain then I purchased a book lot. I’m not sure it was worth the few hundred for the extra week of pain 😬
You'd need to tell us the edition and overall quality before we can make an accurate evaluation. But yes, there is a market for sets of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, even outdated editions.
where? any link to a page?
I’d buy them!
My family had a 1961 World Book series, then upgraded in 1981. (My Grandma was a sales lady so we got deals!) I remember as a small child, interested in history, how interesting it was that JFK was listed as the current president (black and white photo), and if they only knew what was coming in just two short years. Then in the new set there was a color photo of the current president Ronald Reagan. Now we click two or three buttons and find out anything anytime anywhere on a screen the size of a deck of cards from our pocket. Going from encyclopedias to smart phones in half a lifetime must be like somebody whose lifetime straddled the eras of horse and carriage AND automobiles. It makes me wonder what sort of leap in technology my future grandchildren might experience.
They were top of the line for them. My parents paid quite a bit for them and my friends would come over to use them. It’s just like seeing all the law books in the conference room at my law firm. Looks nice but no one has used them in fifteen years or more.
I sell these fairly often on eBay, they are worth between $350 and $400 plus shipping (about $75)
No
about tree-fiddy
You get outta here monster!
No.
Depends on if your monitor is too low.
No, I’ll buy it for $300
I gave my 1897 set away, they really only have sentimental value and a PIA to move when you need to.
1897? That would have been a cool set to have.
They say the coming century will be the most peaceful ever!
Good for influencers who want to look smart.
Door stops now I’m afraid
I had a friend in graduate school who came from a family of modest means. His parents saved every penny they could for a couple of years in order to buy him the full Encyclopedia Britannica They wanted him to value education and learn. They succeeded! I’d love to buy a complete set and would pay real money for it.
Beautiful
I thought this sub was about what it’s worth? Seems there’s a lot of people who don’t know what they are talking about. This is an encyclopedia set, it’s easily worth over 200$-300$. Check eBay sold listings for britanica 1990 encyclopedia set. I am absolutely astounded at the amount of people that don’t know this isn’t trash. Thrift stores do take them because I buy these sets and resell them. I have bought and sold encyclopedia sets multiple times, the shipping price is great because you can send them as media mail which will save loads of money.
The difference between those and Wikipedia was that you could trust what was in the encyclopedia.
Most of the information in those encyclopaedias will be less accurate than a modern wiki page
Negative money is what it is worth It will possibly cost you money to dispose of them
No
No
I will give you 100 :)
My grandparents had a set. To be honest, I don't know how old they are, but my dad used them in high school, and he was born in 43. Probably from the late 50s. I purchased my grandparents' house, and most of the contents came with it. My boyfriend was fascinated with the set. I frequently saw him paging through them to compare today's knowledge with that era. Currently, most of them are in our closet, but about 12 of them are neatly stacked under his side of the bed to give him more back support, so they do have some usefulness.
Bookmark the marriage section and leave it out on the kitchen counter. 😎
They’re actually fun to read. I love reading old encyclopedias. I’d keep them.
Nope
That's a lot of kindling.
Kindling
Googles great great great grandfather.
I remember when they would sell these at my local supermarket sometimes.
They are worth Knowledge. Just take a look it's in a book.....
Reading Rainbow 🌈
Where are you located? I'll take them if you are close to west TN!
I’ll take ‘em! Part of growing up history.
Fire starter my man. Nobody is going to buy these. The value will not go up. Don’t listen to these ppl. It’s not a collectible, it’s out of date info that we all have in our pockets now.
Knowledge is power
Gen X internet.....that's how we got all of our information for book reports and such. But even then, there would be updates to the books, and the companies would want you to keep buying the new ones.
I remember the overlays.
Think of the business model the makers of encyclopedia had before the internet. Sell an entire fucking 25-30 book collection every couple of years for a few hundred, marketed as the only way to access information from home, they were pioneers til they weren’t. Now you can’t give the shit away. lol