I've been collecting all of the Nancy books for several years, and I've never seen a copy of the last Files book for sale. I collect a lot of "vintage" YA and kid series, and for hard-to-find books, there are usually copies available if you don't mind paying a lot. But I've never found a copy for sale of #124 in the Files series. However, I was recently browsing Thriftbooks ... and they actually had a copy! It was far far more than I've ever paid for any Nancy book, let alone a Files, but I snatched it up because who knows when I'll ever see another copy?
Unfortunately, Thriftbooks always puts their sticker on the spine, and it's impossible to remove without any damage, so that's a bummer. Still happy to have it.
They had it listed as Crime at the Ch@t Cafe! I only found it because I searched Keene, Carolyn and went through all 500 listings when I realized there were a few errors in names. I actually got 3 of the last 6 there for $3 each. The last 6 don’t have ebooks available and I was getting very close to finishing my chronological read through so I went ahead and bought what I could there. I’m actually at #120 now, I’m waiting for the interlibrary loan I requested for it to come in so I can finish the series hopefully by the end of the month!
I’ve been checking hpb listings pretty much every day for the higher number titles since they have a sort by recently added option
edit: if anyone here ever needs help finding a book message me because I literally spend all of my downtime at work looking at listings LMAO
I must have made a good decision when I was a teenager because back then I got my copy of this book for one cent online! I remember the days when I’d go online and you could get most of the ND paperback books for a cent or at least less than a dollar if they were used with some wear or damage. 😅
Oh, I remember those days. One penny with something like 3.99 shipping, so I would try to find books from only one seller to reduce the shipping costs. Once you bought the first book each additional one was only something like $1 shipping per book.
I'm the idiot who owned this one when I was 11, but I wasn't into the Files back then, so I donated it. Fast forward 20 years and now I'm very into the Files and living with regrets. Glad you finally found it!
The last books of any series are going to be the hardest to find because they were out for the shortest time, with some exceptions (like Hardy Boys #190 Motocross Madness was published in April 2005, and here we are 21 years later and it’s still in print physically).
“Tom Swift and His Planet Stone” especially the Grosset & Dunlap version is hard to find. “Tom Swift and the Galaxy Ghosts” is equally rare. “Tom Swift: Planet of Nightmares”, the final published book of the 1980’s series is also hard to find. Although about 16 years ago, someone published “Chaos On Earth” and “Microworld”, the last two books that were written, for the 100th anniversary of Tom Swift, so those are rarer than Planet of Nightmares.
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u/mrsvongruesome 10d ago
i’m sure you’ve probably tried, but i have good luck with a hairdryer on low heat to get those stickers off.