The Hardy Boys Digests and Casefiles are becoming hard to find

[JoeHardyRocks]

Amazon.com is a great source but it would cost me a lot of $ to fill in the gaps of my Digests collection. So I am slowly getting them...a few or so at a time.

Yeah, I know what ya mean. I usually buy the $0.01 used ones from the third party sellers on amazon, but it costs like $3.99 for shipping. But for Digests, If I get like 6, Amazon ships them for free.

[Bigfootman]

My luck seems to be changing. I just got "The Swamp Monster" and "Hide-and-sneak" at a used book store, along with the Nancy Drew Files books "White Water Terror" and "Update On Crime"!

I try to avoid Amazon if I can, not only because of the shipping cost but because, if you buy from a used book store, you know what you are getting and what condition it is in, but not with Amazon. I tried ordering 2 VHS tapes from there to complete my "Videosaurus" (old educational dinosaur videos starring Gary Owens and Eric Boardman) collection. Both were ex-library. The first one was in perfect condition, but the second one...let's just say I'm amazed it's not damaged at all.

You know how at some libraries vhs tapes are stored in something called a crab-tree case (basically it's a case that really hard to open)? The second tape was originally in one of these. The slip cover is also in the case, missing it's right side. Guess what the seller does. They take the VHS tape and the slip cover out of the crab-tree case, and ship them to me! The vhs is in the slipcover, but the slipcover doesn't hold it because it's right side is missing! I had to glue paper to the right side to make it hold the VHS tape. And before I did that, the VHS had fallen onto a hard floor twice!  I was lucky that tape wasn't broken.

However, one of my other friends who ordered VHS tapes, this time from E-bay wasn't as lucky. The tapes just didn't work.

I did order two used books from Chapter.ca, and despite one of the books having very rippable pages, both arrived in readable condition. However, neither of them were Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew books, and I could not find either of the books in any used book store, and I had $100 in gift cards to use to buy them.

[hardygirl847]

Amazon is great for several things but yeah, that can happen. I usually try to find familiar  names of outside sellers that I've used before. If none of them are ones I've used before, then I check the ratings/reviews for people saying similar comments to yours.

There was 1 SuperMystery that was completely trashed...It was sold as part of a huge bundle but I can't do anything with it because it's so destroyed. I wasn't going to return it because I got a LOT of books. So I guess I get to buy it again. I think this was from Ebay.

Used bookstores are great but I just don't have that many around me. Whenever I go somewhere new, I am always in search of any used bookstores and look to see if they have HBs.

[AlwaysAJoefan]

Amazon is great for several things but yeah, that can happen. I usually try to find familiar  names of outside sellers that I've used before. If none of them are ones I've used before, then I check the ratings/reviews for people saying similar comments to yours.

That's sort of what I do one eBay. I'll check out the feedback reports and stuff. I've never done much on Amazon; I'm more the eBay user. 

[hardygirl847]

Both are good but you have to an informed buyer. That's sometimes the annoying part...but necessary part of it.

[JoeHardyRocks]

So I went to a used bookstore today and no digests or casefiles But I got 2 originals, The Tower Treasure and The Shore Road Mystery, so Now I own at least one of every type of HB book.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I want to a Half Price Books store while I was on vacation and and got Alex Rider: The Gadgets and The Hardy Boys: A Game Called Chaos. #160.

[tomswift2002]

I went to a used book store as well today, and while I didn't find any Digests or Casefiles (but funnily enough the store had #6 Burned & 12 Trouble In Paradise both from the UB series, and both terrible books) I did gind a copy of The Tower Treasure as printed in 1992 by Scholastic. 

In 1992 Scholastic had permission to reprint The Tower Treasure & The House On The Cliff (revised texts) in a modified "Flashlight" format.  The modifications were minimal, but instead of having the listing of the first 6 books on the back cover, there was a write-up of the plot, and then on the spine there was a red rectangle right at the bottom with the Scholastic Open-book logo that continued onto the Front Cover with "Scholastic" printed on the red stripe.  And the Copyright page mentions a 1992 printing by Scholastic.  Otherwise, the books look just like the current Flashlight editions.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I went to a used book store as well today, and while I didn't find any Digests or Casefiles (but funnily enough the store had #6 Burned & 12 Trouble In Paradise both from the UB series, and both terrible books)

Excuse me, but they are not!

[tomswift2002]

Excuse me, but they are not!

They are.  Burned was about Frank and Joe cracking an bootleg CD ring.  Not only is that one of the worst plots of all time, but the author did absolutely nothing with the plot.  The author could've had the boys going all over the US and the world tracking down a huge bootleg ring, but instead it turned into a giant morality tale between the Hardy's and Chet on whether downloading music from iTunes or Napster and burning it to a CD to share with friends is legal or morally right. But  then the boys eventually find out that it was one of their teachers who was creating the bootleg CD's that are floating around the school  It took the whole book for the boys to find out it was their teacher?  Really, in the Original and Casefile continuity books the boys would've discovered that it was their teacher within the first 3 or 4 chapters, and then they would've discovered, or their teacher would've confessed that he was part of a larger operation. 

Not only that, but the Hardy Boys 1977 TV series did an episode in the first season called Mystery of The Flying Courier that was all about pirate vinyl records  (remember that in 1977 there were no CD's or digital files, but there were vinyl records and pirate record rings were hot, especially for albums that were only being played in clubs and their release dates were still months down the road).  Sure all the action stayed in Bayport, but the writer actually had the boys take part of a huge ring that had been operating in the US.

As for Trouble In Paradise the book was left with a dangling end where we have no idea whether the crooks were captured or escaped.  All the author needed to do was put in a line saying that the police or ATAC later informed the boys that the crooks had been caught.  But, instead we are left with the crooks still in the wild, possible captured, but also possible having escaped their bonds and the boys in the hospital.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

They are.  Burned was about Frank and Joe cracking an bootleg CD ring.  Not only is that one of the worst plots of all time, but the author did absolutely nothing with the plot.  The author could've had the boys going all over the US and the world tracking down a huge bootleg ring, but instead it turned into a giant morality tale between the Hardy's and Chet on whether downloading music from iTunes or Napster and burning it to a CD to share with friends is legal or morally right. But  then the boys eventually find out that it was one of their teachers who was creating the bootleg CD's that are floating around the school  It took the whole book for the boys to find out it was their teacher?  Really, in the Original and Casefile continuity books the boys would've discovered that it was their teacher within the first 3 or 4 chapters, and then they would've discovered, or their teacher would've confessed that he was part of a larger operation. 

Not only that, but the Hardy Boys 1977 TV series did an episode in the first season called Mystery of The Flying Courier that was all about pirate vinyl records  (remember that in 1977 there were no CD's or digital files, but there were vinyl records and pirate record rings were hot, especially for albums that were only being played in clubs and their release dates were still months down the road).  Sure all the action stayed in Bayport, but the writer actually had the boys take part of a huge ring that had been operating in the US.

As for Trouble In Paradise the book was left with a dangling end where we have no idea whether the crooks were captured or escaped.  All the author needed to do was put in a line saying that the police or ATAC later informed the boys that the crooks had been caught.  But, instead we are left with the crooks still in the wild, possible captured, but also possible having escaped their bonds and the boys in the hospital.

Hey! Give Frank and Joe a break. I loved Burned! I didn't get The Mystery of the Flying Courier. Couldn't get my head around that you had records and not CD's and digital files. So, that was really confusing to me.

[tomswift2002]

I didn't get The Mystery of the Flying Courier. Couldn't get my head around that you didn't have records. So, that was really confusing to me.

What was really confusing?  The fact that people made bootleg records back then, or the fact that they could make bootleg records at all?  Did you think that people could only copy stuff onto cassette tapes back then and call it a bootleg recording? 

As for the whole plot, it was like the Napster case from 10 years ago where Napster was allowing free downloads of any music file for people to download and burn to CD without paying royalties to the record companies, especially for music that was just released or Promo copies of albums that were only suppose to be sent to music stations and DJ's for playing on the radio and in clubs before the retail release date of the albums.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

What was really confusing?  The fact that people made bootleg records back then, or the fact that they could make bootleg records at all?  Did you think that people could only copy stuff onto cassette tapes back then and call it a bootleg recording? 

As for the whole plot, it was like the Napster case from 10 years ago where Napster was allowing free downloads of any music file for people to download and burn to CD without paying royalties to the record companies, especially for music that was just released or Promo copies of albums that were only suppose to be sent to music stations and DJ's for playing on the radio and in clubs before the retail release date of the albums.

Everything. I never knew that they could make bootleg records. 

[MacGyver]

As for Trouble In Paradise the book was left with a dangling end where we have no idea whether the crooks were captured or escaped.  All the author needed to do was put in a line saying that the police or ATAC later informed the boys that the crooks had been caught.  But, instead we are left with the crooks still in the wild, possible captured, but also possible having escaped their bonds and the boys in the hospital.

They had a similar scenario in The Caribbean Cruise Caper where the bad guys apparently got away at the end. I was kinda surprised that Frank and Joe didn't bring them all to justice- but I suppose it was at least a different twist anyway.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

They had a similar scenario in The Caribbean Cruise Caper where the bad guys apparently got away at the end. I was kinda surprised that Frank and Joe didn't bring them all to justice- but I suppose it was at least a different twist anyway.

Hey. I liked that one, too!