On Jan. 24 of this year, I posted about my terrific find at a local bookstore here in Austin.  Just before Christmas I was browsing the shelves of our local Half Price bookstore.  The first shelves I typically go to are the dollar discount ones.  My eyes landed on a biography of H.L. Mencken.  I knew some about the famous journalist, but thought the biography looked quite good.  And it was tough to turn down a beautiful hardback for $1.00.

I was thumbing through the biography and out falls two letters from Mencken.  I couldn’t believe it.  A collectible store in Baltimore (Mencken’s home town) told me they were worth $400 and that they would pay me $200 for them.