Abe & Etsy

A few months ago I made my first purchases on Abe.com and Etsy.com.  Abe is a very dangerous place for bibliophiles.  There are loads of books listed.  Depending on your preference some really used or ex-library books can be acquired for as little as $3-4.  I actually discovered Abe through my Rare Books class, doing my collection on Tolkien.  I decided my personal Tolkien collection needed some augmenting so I made a purchase in November.  I bought 4 books by Tolkien for $12.  They were in pretty good shape; only one had a slight tear on the back cover.  One was hardcover.  Then at the end of the year I made a second order, in which I got an inscribed copy of Tom Shippey’s Author of the Century, which made me quite happy.  I’ve also gotten a couple of C. S. Lewis books, some textbooks, and a collection of modern authors Sherlock stories.  Here’s a picture of the Inklings stuff.

Then in December I re-discovered Etsy.com.  I’ve found some fun stuff on there; I have a number of favourited items.  My first purchase was for a Big Ben card holder, basically like an Oyster card holder but the “hinge” is on the long end not the short end.  It looked cool and I’ve been using it for my SUNY card.  I’ve made two small tea purchases since December, I’ve been happy with the flavours I’ve tried so far.  The first purchase was for a selection of 1 oz samples of any ten kinds in the store.  Of the one’s I’ve ordered I’ve tried 5.  The seller also had a Christmas special of 10 free tea bags of purchases over $10.  I don't complain about free stuff.  Then a couple weeks ago I bought some more tea from a different seller.  That just arrived a couple days ago, so I’ve not tried it yet.  Here's the first purchase of 10 samples:

The best purchase however has been pins.  Right after Sherlock season 2 aired I really wanted some more Sherlock pins.  I have my official pin from the Sherlock Holmes Museum, but I wanted to see if there were any tv show ones.  I found a couple of sellers on Etsy, and I purchased some.  I ended up getting 8 pins, with a combination of quotes/tv references.  I’m quite proud of them and can’t wait to get them properly arranged on my school bag.  I realize the picture is kind of small but here it is:

Today I visited the nursing archive for about 2.5 hours and got a good start on my collection.  Now I’m off to finish reading my book about tea.  After that I will get started on my archival processing plan.