Is pretty darn good.

I’m talking about Half.com.

Half.com is an eBay company.

It didn’t use to be.  I mean, it used to be all on its own, and then it was bought.  So far, I don’t see much difference either for the better or the worse.

The idea is that used books and movies and games and music can be sold by those who are done with them to those who haven’t seen them yet.  It’s evolved so that there are a number of vendors there, as well.

It’s saved me countless hours searching garage sales and flea markets and library book sales for hard-to-find volumes.  Right now, I’m working on a project (Round Robin Shakespeare) for which I need a number of copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

75 cents on Half.com.

Plus postage, of course, which is where they get you, but so far, at least, it’s reasonable postage—within what one would expect an item to ship for—even when the postage does exceed the item’s cost.

That always seems wrong—until you realize you just got five copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare for under $5 bucks apiece.  (Do you know how heavy those things are?!)

So far, I’ve only ever bought from Half.  If and when I get my house in better order, I might branch out into selling.  (If this project falls apart, I’m gonna have five copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare to unload.)

I’ve also never bought anything but books.  The DVDs are tempting sometimes, but I’m leery of used DVDs.  Even my new DVDs don’t always play smoothly.  And I’m even more leery of the potential for bootlegged copies.   I may try it at some point, though, if the price is sufficiently tempting, the seller reviews sufficiently strong, and the item sufficiently hard to find elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I’m just thankful I was able to get those five copies of Shakespeare without taking out a mortgage.  Of course, if I had taken out a mortgage and fell into foreclosure, I could always use them to build a house.  (Do you realize how much space those things take up?!)