The Merry Misadventures of Collecting Oz

Despite the DVDs, CDs, and custom action figures and digital stuff, I think it's safe to say my Oz collection mainly consists of books.

Now, there are many ways to get books, buy them new, buy them used, or swap. And book swapping has gotten much easier with websites like PaperbackSwap. A friend of mine and I swear by PaperbackSwap, and that's where I've managed to get a number of Eloise McGraw's non-Oz books, and my copy of Jack Snow's Dark Music.

There are a number of Oz-related books available on sites like this. My friend also tried another swapping site, but after sending out a large number of books and having his own requests refused, he wanted help using his credits so he could close his account.

When I heard the Winkie Convention would have a swap meet this year, I decided to help my friend out by getting some of these books so he could use his credits, and I could bring some Oz books to people who would really want them.

Well, today, my friend can close his account, because I got the last of the books I requested. Actually... I really didn't.

One of the reasons why my friend and I were dissatisfied with that site (which you'll notice we aren't linking to), some users would send the wrong book. I requested a copy of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and instead of the novel, I got a comic book adaptation. Two times I've tried to get the Chick-Fil-A abridgement of Ozma of Oz, and both times, I wound up with a paperback of the novel.

Now, usually, you're supposed to list your book by ISBN, which would prevent such mishaps, except that not all members do it, and sometimes multiple editions of a book share the same ISBN. This site was quite notorious for users who weren't even looking at the ISBN.

So, I requested the Jewel Sticker Stories adaptation of The Wizard of Oz.

Want to see what they sent me instead?

... Wow... Just... wow...