How much do you pay for second hand paperbacks?

[HildaHotPants]

Was a bit shocked yesterday, as I picked up some books in a charity shop and the price was £1.50 each, £1.99 each. For chick-lit shite, and nothing very recent.

In my local shops you would pay 50p for the same thing.

I know it's all for charity and I did pay it, but wondered whether my local price was very low.

My favourite charity shop (Barnardos) charges £1.99 for a paperback. Where do they charge 50p? Might be worth a day out!

Around £1.00 at local Oxfam and also Community Library. Am always shocked at price of paperbacks in Cancer Research - £2.50 plus

Glad I'm not on my own there! I like to shop on the market, I get much better deals there, about £1.

My library sells off old books for 20p each or you can buy a canvas bag and fill it all for £3!

I do shop at charity shops though, I'm not that tight :)

50p from my local charity shop.

I bought two the other day from my local Age Concern shop. One was 99p and the other was £1.99. Bit random and can only assume it was because one was thicker than the other!

I used to work in there and we charged 10% of the cover price for books less than 4 years old which I thought was jolly reasonable. Now I think there's a structure of pricing within the chains. The independent charity shops are where you'll still get the bargains I imagine.

Sounds about right for my area. The most expensive are Oxfam at £2.50 on average, other bigger charities are around £1.50. I simply don't impulse buy in those shops any more, I'll only buy the occasional book that I know I will read.

I shop mostly at the smaller, less organised shops where books are cheaper and end up with 5 or 10 impulse buys instead. I get the majority of my reading material from the library now, both borrowing and from the library sale where they are 20p-50p. The RSPCA shop near me has a box of children's books that are all 10p so the kids get most of their books from there and the library.

about £1.50 at my local charity shops - sometimes more.

Though they do sell childrens picture books 3 for £1

I paid 2.75 for 2 recent pbs at the Arthritis Research shop, they were 2.50 and 2.75 but BOGOF. I am put off oxfam because they are hardly any cheaper than supermarket.

£1 at my charity shops though Marie Curie does BOGOF on all.books

the St Oswalds shop sells all childrens paperbacks and board.books for 25p each.

And the library is great, I don't get why they sell off their old stock so quickly,I have paid around 75p for paperbacks, up to 1.50 for non fiction. Got The Bell Jar, and The Handmaids Tale recently for about 50p each

Our local BHF shop is the dearest, at around £2.50-£2.75 for a paperback, some of which are not that recent. The cheapest I found was a charity shop when I was on holiday a few weeks ago and they charged 10p for paperbacks. I will definitely be going in there again :o

I live in London and my mum is in Ilkley - I have a local Marie Curie shop which is mostly £1 to £1.50, a bit more for special things but the £2 books I've bought there have been excellent condition hardbacks or trade paperbacks published in the last 12 months. Most of the other charity shops I use are £2.50 to £3, which I think is quite a lot but there are some things I'll pay that for if they're in good nick. Some of the places that charge more have occasional 3 for price of 2 or half price sales. The nearest Oxfam bookshop charges more for its section of 2011/2012 books (which includes lots of 2010 stuff) - mistake I think, as I have many of the ones I want on Kindle and those are the books that are easiest to get cheaply as ebooks or as new paperbacks, it's the older treasures I'm after. (Virago Modern Classics, other literary reprints, women writers, crime fiction series, literary biographies, memoirs, travel writing, political stuff, short story collections). I do get some chicklit but I'm quite fussy - if it's something I see in a lot of charity shops I'll hold out for a copy which looks almost new.

This is a bit of a bugbear of mine, too. I buy lots of books from charity shops and often donate them back when I've finished, but I get very irritated when Oxfam (a particular offender) tries to charge something like £3.99 for an ordinary paperback. It's a secondhand book FFS. Sometimes a fairly battered copy. So I won't buy from them, I'm afraid, charity or not.

We have a local bookstall round the back of the town hall which charges an amazing 20p for paperbacks.....So in that instance I usually put rather more in - which is good psychology, surely. Oxfam take note!

Postage on amazon tends to be around 2 quid, doesn't it, so I guess they reckon they are still a good deal?

Expensive chain charity shops they are about £2. Cheaper local charity shops £1. Car boot sales £1 or 50p or even 20p if you're lucky.

I get a lot of stuff 2nd hand from amazon, books cost 1p, postage £2.80. Pretty good value considering you can get pretty much anything on there.

In my parents' town, charity shop is about 50p for a paperback, here in London, maybe £1.50 to £2.50.

I won't pay much more than £2 for a 2nd hand book.

Our guides have a book sale every 6 months and books are 20p each ... Bargain!

50p from local hospice shop. Always has decent stuff in too.

Thanks, our local charity shops are hospice types, demelza, but not oxfam. Will be sticking to them in future. I've built up a good wish list from here too, so am on the look out for particular authors.

I've recently discovered British Heart Foundation for books & they're really good. A lot of recent paperbacks & it's generally. £2. There's also a list where you can put down your name & books you're after and they'll ring when it's in.

My local Oxfam tends to charge about half the current RRP for books, so they don't usually charge less than £3 for paperbacks. I very rarely buy any books from there.

Our charity shops tend to be very much smaller local charities and their prices are much more sensible than the ridiculous overpricing oxfam goes in for. I usually pay 50p for a paperback, maybe £1 for a hardback. - At that price I just re donate when I've finished it.

I buy in our local RSPCA shop where they do 50p for paperbacks and £1 for hardbacks. Someone who donates there obviously buys a lot of recent best seller list stuff then donates so I then buy! I also got Ds all the Harry Potters in hardback, in excellent condition.
Oxfam bookshops really bug me....£2.99 for very bog standard paperbacks.

One of the Farliegh shops has a 10p paperback box outside, don't know why the books that are in there are in there 'cos they are in good condition. There is also a box for hardbacks at 50p. Our library has had fill a bag for a £1.00 can get 20 books in.

Local Oxfam £1??
At ours (there's three of them I can think of in the centre) they start from about £1.99 and go up...and up...and up, most of them are at £3.99, but I've come across £5.99 etc for paperbacks.
Can't think of any really cheap bookshops here. Except the one I used to work at- 3 for £1, hardbacks 50p!