Book lover selling part of 75,000 collection

 

By Kristi Shields

Staff writer

7-16-2020

 

MANTI—A local book collector is selling books for $1 each from his 75,000 book collection, with genres consisting of classics, children’s books, LDS books, bird books and more.

Nate Christensen, of Manti, has been collecting LDS books for over 20 years as a personal hobby.

About one year ago, he purchased a 75,000 plus book collection from an institution in Provo, which had acquired the books from a book store. Before making it into Nate’s hands, the collection sat in storage for seven years, shrink wrapped in pallets — 42 in total.

Nate said he’d rather not disclose what the price of the whole collection was.

He has just recently had the time to start scouting through the books, finding the collectables that he wants to keep, and searching for a home for the rest.

Nate and a few of his children hold a book sale every Saturday from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. located right outside his house at 90 S. 100 E.

If the book is valued at $30 or less, he sells it at his book sale, but if he finds a higher end book, he helps his children list it on Amazon, and lets them keep the money. He is also willing to sell books per pallet as well.

“I want to teach [my kids] how to go in and how to find value, and also learn how to be an entrepreneur and make money,” Nate said.

One of his sons, Trever Christensen, found a high value book himself and sold it on Amazon for $250.

Trever said he likes making money from selling books because he saves it and also buys silver with it.

The family has sold over 1,000 books so far.

By having this big book sale, it is “teaching my kids my love for books, not just to collect, but to read,” Nate said. “We live in a day in age of digital everything, and that annoys the crap out of me.”

Society is getting further and further away from the traditional hardback book reading, and books are a great way to get unplugged. 

“That’s the kind of lesson that makes it worth it for me,” Nate said.

Nate said he has had fun searching through these books because he has not only found classic books for himself, but he has discovered thousands of genres he didn’t even know of.

“I have found so many fun things for my collection, it just gets me excited,” Nate said.

Nate said he is also meeting people who are as passionate about other genres as he is about the LDS genre.

“People come with my kind of excitement,” Nate said.

Nate said what he loves about collecting is the mystery of what you’ll find.

“I can go from rare LDS to first edition Stephen King to Edward Burrows to war books to a whole box [of books] on birds,” Nate said. “Whatever world I want is there.”

Nate said the book sales are taking place for the time being, but they won’t be here forever. He said he would love to get more people interested in purchasing the whole collection. He has had a few people interested who he has negotiated prices with. 

”If the right person came who wanted to start a bookstore or who was a major collector or had more time, they could make significant amounts of money,” Nate said. “I could make a deal with them and still make it worth my time.”

Nate wants to find someone who really cares about the collection and can make the most out of it.

“Ultimately, I want the books to go to a good home,” he added. “I’d like these books to get out of its container and go have a life of its own.”