Last month at a swap in Portland, this older guy offered me a beat-up paperback of Rilke for my 15 pound NASA atlas. He said, 'That atlas will just sit on a shelf, but this will sit in your head.' I laughed and took the trade, mostly because he seemed so sure of himself. Now I'm wondering if I gave up something visually stunning for something that's technically harder to read. Is the value of a giant book in its presence or its contents? Has anyone else swapped big for small and regretted it or loved it?
Had a chat with a guy at the post office in Cleveland last week after I tried to send a 12 pound art book to a swap partner. He pointed out that media mail is cheap but slow, and if the book gets damaged, you are out of luck. He suggested shipping via UPS ground with your own box, and suddenly the $18 quote I got online dropped to $11. The catch was I had to flatten a bigger box to fit it exactly, not just slap it in a big one. Anyone else found a cheaper way to ship these monsters without using the post office?
I mean, I know this is the giant book group so this might not sound wild, but the shipping on this thing would've been like $60 easy. Got it for $3 and it's got these amazing full-page bridge cross-section diagrams. Has anyone else scored something huge at a library sale and then realized you have no shelf that can hold it?
Paying $45 to ship that 18-pound atlas across state lines made me swear off geography books forever, but swapping it for a 8-pound astrophotography tome on Craigslist cut the whole hassle down to a $7 meetup at a Denver coffee shop, so why does anyone still mail these monsters instead of just using local trade boards?
I tried to trade a huge National Geographic atlas set with someone in Chicago and nearly had a heart attack at the UPS counter. They quoted me $68 because it was over their size limit, so I almost just gave up and kept the books. Then a clerk mentioned that oversized reference books might qualify for media mail if the total weight stays under 70 pounds. I packed the whole set into two flat-rate boxes and split the shipment, which cut the cost to about $24 total. Now I always check the USPS size rules before I promise anyone a trade across state lines. Has anyone else found a cheaper carrier for those massive art tomes, or is media mail the only real option out there?
I had this giant book of Renaissance paintings, had to weigh like 90 pounds (okay, maybe 70, but still). It sat in my closet for 3 years because no local shop would take it and online rates were nuts, like $45 minimum. I posted it here last week and a lady from Portland traded me a smaller book on modern architecture, plus we used media mail so she only paid $8.25 for the box. The size difference is wild, my shelf has actual breathing room now and I can grab the architecture one without straining. Anyone else managed to swap a giant that was just taking up floor space?