There is an auction on eBay for a complete set of the Lakeside Classics 1903-2006.
I am fairly confident the complete set on eBay will sell for $11,000. There are 104 volumes in the set. You are paying roughly $100 per volume if you can get the entire set for $11,000. The fourth book (Fruits of Solitude) in the series is easily worth $2000 by itself.
You can read more about the Lakeside Classics here.
Auction for the fourth book
There is also an auction for just the fourth book. Bidding starts at $3500.
Nice, but I’d be so cautious
I am an ebay nerd. Mostly a seller, not a buyer, but I’d be so cautious with this… Mainly due to its price (I’m cheap,and when it comes to purchases from an unknown source over $20, I’m extra cheap), but also due to the fact this seller’s feedback isn’t the hottest. Granted, the bad comments tend to be mostly from sellers re: this user ID as a buyer… But there are a few comments about the user ID as a seller as well.
Secondly, even if the seller didn’t list the condition for every book, personally as a seller, I’d sure as hell list the book in the worst condition (with pics) and the best condition (with pics) and the most typical condition (with pics). Most ebay sellers don’t really know/adhere/care about the formal “condition rating” system, and will list things that are in passable condition as VG (or, if you’re lucky, things as mint in NM). Thing is, there’s no way of knowing without good pictures.
The shipping, at least, doesn’t seem inflated for the number and weight of books you’d be getting. I don’t know if UPS Ground includes insurance. Probably not 11k worth of insurance. And boy, I’d want insurance on that if I were either buying or selling that lot…
It’s a cool collection, and if I had $11,000 (or whatever the reserve is… for all we know it might be 20k) to actually purchase this, I *might* take the chance. But I’d certainly be more willing to take the chance with representative pics of quality.