Buy - Sell - Trade

Booking an appointment for Buying/Selling

Unless you have an appointment to sell books, we cannot guarantee we will be able to look at your books if you bring them in. We STRONGLY encourage you to make an appointment (except when trading back books you purchased at TTB, in excellent condition, with price sticker intact).

Our store hours are:
11:00am–7:00pm Monday-Saturday 
11:00am–3:00pm Sunday

Please keep in mind that we are increasingly selective and buy only what we think we need. Our offers are based on the expected retail value of the books we buy. Retail value is generally derived from condition, desirability, current & historic market value, in-print price, our current stock, requests, and (again) condition.

CONTEXT/PHILOSOPHY:

There will always be physical books and people who read, love and collect them. WE BELIEVE that books will continue to be objects of expression, information, beauty and artifacts of cultural history, and the bookstore will continue to be one of the places where people will look for and find books. But sadly there are fewer and fewer brick and mortar bookstores and more and more people replacing physical books with e-books and other media. Therefore, Time Tested Books must by necessity be increasingly selective and offer trade credit for most books except for those that are especially desirable.

POLICY GUIDELINES:

Time-Tested Books strives to offer a wide selection of high quality, sought-after books, many of which are harder to find. They must be in excellent condition so people can proudly display them, but we seek to emphasize specific authors, titles and content rather than age or appearance per se.

VALUE:

There are at least four types of value to books: literary, artistic, sentimental and economic. Everyone must assess the first three types themselves. The economic value is based primarily on desirability, scarcity and condition, and we turn to abebooks.com to provide the primary guidance in setting the price we pay for and charge for books. On average, our goal is to offer approximately 1/3 to 1/2 half of what we charge for books in trade credit and approximately 1/4 to 1/3 in cash for books we really, really want. Unless it is no longer in salable condition, if you bring back a book that has the TTB sticker inside the front cover, you can apply half of that amount toward secondhand books and records on our shelves.  

MOST DESIRABLE BOOKS:

Archaic skills and crafts
Bicycles & cyling
California and the West
Chess
Children (esp classics a la Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, etc.)
Classics (esp "Modern Classics"--i.e., 20th century)
Cookbooks (esp new titles & established classics & veg/raw/vegan)
Esoterica, occult, New Age
Folklore, mythology, fairy tales
Graphic Novels
Language: Spanish, French, Russian, Italian
Martial Arts
Native American historyPhilosophy (secular; ancient & modern)
Physical fitness & body work
Music history/biography: underground, jazz, rock
Sacramento and the Central Valley
Travel guides less than three years old

We Do NOT buy:
Books in poor condition
Hardback best sellers
Magazines & periodicals
Short shelf life: diet, older travel guides, computer manuals, encyclopedias, etc.
Subscription:  Readers Digest, National Geographic
Textbooks
Book club editions, especially fiction
Car repair manuals, sheet music and scores, comic books

Trade Credit

We offer 50% trade credit on any books purchased from Time Tested Books, as long as you keep the price sticker intact and the book is returned in good condition:

-No Rips, Tears or Stains/Water Damage

-No writing or highlighting (with the exception of a discreet owner's name written in front)

-No pages falling out or coming loose and no loose or broken spines/bindings