In one of my other incarnations, I maintain a website dedicated to the cartoon character Bristow. From time to time collections of the cartoons, originally published in the Evening Standard, were issued in book form. The first one appeared in 1966 and, unusually, comprised redrawn full page versions of some of the original cartoons together with pictures specially drawn for the book to make more of a story. It is rarer than the other books but still not too difficult to find on Ebay and on second hand book search sites.
Recently I saw this book on Ebay. It was for sale for £1601.27. This compares with a "normal" second hand price of between £5 and £15. I assumed this must be a mistake, was tempted to send the seller a message1 but, as Ebay doesn't make this possible until you bid for something, decided not to waste my time.
Today the following appeared in my web browser, as a targeted ad based no doubt on the fact that I had looked at the book.
I can save £1,375.70!!! according to Messrs. Ebay. Wow, with those savings I could take a week's holiday. I could buy a wardrobe of top clobber. I could... hold on....I'm not actually saving a bean. A book that was on sale for 100 times a reasonable price is now available at a dramatic price cut (but still some 15 times more than anyone with half a brain would pay). I am being invited to pay an unbelievably stupid price for a second hand book of which the seller can't even be bothered to supply a picture of the front cover but hey! it's cool because not long ago he wanted a price so ridiculous he was probably in line to become Regius Professor of Rip-offs and Scams at the Trotter Institute.
And if you're wondering what the front cover looks like, here it is and you don't have to cough up a single bean for the privilege of seeing it.
1. The message I would have sent? Something on the lines of "I don't know what you've been drinking / inhaling / injecting lately but I'll take a crate of it, OK?"
No comments:
Post a Comment