Selling the OED

[Mike Daysley]

Hi everyone

I am moving house soon and am going to struggle to fit the dictionaries that I won from the show in my new place.

Does anyone have any experience of selling the ones they won or know where I would even begin to look for buyers? They are still in the original wrapping and in excellent condition.

Thank you for any help you can give.

[JackHurst]

Mine are also still in the original packaging. So strange that they give the runner up £1k cash which is clearly better to have.

[Sam Cappleman-Lynes]

Mine are also still in the original packaging. So strange that they give the runner up £1k cash which is clearly better to have.

They must have forgotten the £1k for my series then

[Mike Daysley]

Mine are also still in the original packaging. So strange that they give the runner up £1k cash which is clearly better to have.

I'm not entirely happy about selling but it's just not feasible for me to keep them. I just have no idea where to advertise them at all.

[Fiona T]

Found one set on ebay that went for £450ish, but that was from the states. Seems as good a place as any to try - you can always stick on a reserve if you don't want them to go too cheap.

[Philip A]

Mine are also still in the original packaging. So strange that they give the runner up £1k cash which is clearly better to have.

FYI, the £1k prize was scrapped in the Nick Hewer era. The runner-up now receives a 32 GB iPad (which I still use daily), the winner a MacBook Pro (which Zarte sold) and, since the Anne Robinson era, the 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary are no longer awarded as they have not been updated since 1989, are too heavy and eat up a lot of space, and no longer reflect current times. The OED prize has not been replaced either.

[Philip A]

Mike, I remember Martin Hurst selling them in a ticket on Apterous, and Zarte did the same for his MacBook Pro (he prefers Windows) which he eventually eBayed off.

Good luck with the move. Hope it’s a happy new home.

[Mike Daysley]

Mike, I remember Martin Hurst selling them in a ticket on Apterous, and Zarte did the same for his MacBook Pro (he prefers Windows) which he eventually eBayed off.

Good luck with the move. Hope it’s a happy new home.

Thank you I've messaged Martin but don't think he's seen it yet.

[Martin Hurst]

Yeah, these things are huge, especially if you have not much storage room in your gaff. I emailed pretty much every specialist book store I could find in the south of England and not a single one was interested so I put them on eBay - we put the option of collecting them for free, or delivering them for an agreed price (would cost hundreds to post them) - think we had a couple of bidders and (from memory as you can't seem to access eBay details that old) we got about £350 for them, plus £50 for delivery which was about a 90 minute drive away (they just about all fit in our boot/back seat). This was about 5 years ago.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

[Dan Byrom]

Mine are also still in the original packaging. So strange that they give the runner up £1k cash which is clearly better to have.

FYI, the £1k prize was scrapped in the Nick Hewer era. The runner-up now receives a 32 GB iPad (which I still use daily), the winner a MacBook Pro (which Zarte sold) and, since the Anne Robinson era, the 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary are no longer awarded as they have not been updated since 1989, are too heavy and eat up a lot of space, and no longer reflect current times. The OED prize has not been replaced either.

Winning prize value has halved even since Zarte's win.

I got a ~£950 value MacBook Air last series, less than half the value of the ~£2000 MacBook Pro Zarte won in his series.

[Philip A]

Mine are also still in the original packaging. So strange that they give the runner up £1k cash which is clearly better to have.

FYI, the £1k prize was scrapped in the Nick Hewer era. The runner-up now receives a 32 GB iPad (which I still use daily), the winner a MacBook Pro (which Zarte sold) and, since the Anne Robinson era, the 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary are no longer awarded as they have not been updated since 1989, are too heavy and eat up a lot of space, and no longer reflect current times. The OED prize has not been replaced either.

Winning prize value has halved even since Zarte's win.

I got a ~£950 value MacBook Air last series, less than half the value of the ~£2000 MacBook Pro Zarte won in his series.

Oh wow. Countdown really cutting costs now. Hope you enjoy the prize anyway.