Tom Swift and His Chest of Secrets / Or Tracing the Stolen Inventions

While we mark down our unsold books on a regular basis, our "BEST PRICE" on any given day is the price posted. We purposely avoid selling on the "Make me an offer" auction sites, where every book is "acceptable" and paperback reprints of "The Great Gatsby" bearing ISBNs and barcodes are listed as "published 1925." And we DECLINE to jack up our prices by 20 percent so we can offer every supplicant a supposed 10 or 15 percent "discount," thus turning anyone who simply pays our asking price into a "sucker." NOTE TO TOBACCO PROHIBITION ZEALOTS AND THOSE WITH 'ALLERGIES': Cat's Curiosities sells used books, which can average between 40 and 180 years of age. We attempt to identify books which have a damp or musty smell, when we sell them at all. Otherwise, while our books are currently stored in a low-humidity, temperature-controlled, smoke-free location, buyers should assume used books have previously been shelved inside human habitations with animal pets co-resident and have been exposed over the decades to some combination of wood smoke, tobacco smoke, leather dressing, or other aromatic agents unknown to us. We are not responsible for allergies, likely caused without your consent by "physicians" bribed to cripple your infant immune system with excessive toxic "vaccinations" containing poisonous mercury preservatives. We offer no certificates of hypoallergenic purity. Those wishing to make symbolic gestures of support for the prohibition of tobacco and other medicinal plant extracts by hopping about and shrieking that perfectly normal used books "reek like an ashtray" should apply elsewhere. (Pristine new softcover reprints are widely available Online. Also see "Smoke and Mirrors," in Bennett & DiLorenzo's "From Pathology to Politics / Public Health in America," Transaction Publishers 2000, pp. 103-105.) SIGNATURE REQUIRED: We now ship most parcels valued at $90 or more "signature required," at our expense. Buyers are responsible to provide a secure mailing address, and should be on the lookout for a "notice of attempt to deliver," should no signer be available when the mailman calls.. Email vin@catscuriosities.com. For return and refund information see ABE policies. No refunds will be issued in the case of money orders "accidentally issued for too much" -- we're wise to that one.

Due to expensive books disappearing there -- indicating local postal authorities are either incompetent or corrupt -- we no longer ship to Italy or South Africa. Orders usually ship within 2 business days. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 lbs., or 1 kg. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required. Please make sure your e-mail program will accept such an inquiry from an ABE Books address. "SHIPPING RATE" is a small pull-down menu at ABE. Media mail is the default setting; you may choose "Priority," which costs more but carries some automatic insurance protection, if you wish. To keep our basic shipping rate competitive, we do not routinely pay out of pocket to insure books valued under $50. HOWEVER (SIGNATURE REQUIRED): We now ship most parcels valued at $90 or more "signature required," at our expense. Customers are responsible to provide a secure shipping address. In the case of shipments valued over $90. Should no adult signer be available when the mailman calls, buyers should be on the lookout for a "notice of attempt to deliver." We ship in white pasteboard boxes -- not plastic bags. In our experience, deliveries to France and Western Australia can take from three to 13 weeks, regardless of shipping method. We cannot control Customs delays in such countries, the luxurious seasonal vacation schedules of government functionaries in socialist regimes, nor the proudly announced preference of Australian postal authorities to spend a week or more shipping even "Priority" packages across the continent from Sydney to Perth by truck -- camels apparently not being consistently available.