The Book Broker

I remember the Book Broker of the 1980's. Times have changed. People have changed. Society as a whole no longer reads books. So where the store used to be 3/4 or more of used paper backs and hard backs with a reasonable collection of comics, the current store is 3/5ths comics and card games, 1/5th DVDs and music and 1/5th used books. They have a good collection of their chosen materials. They even run regular tournaments. If you play yu-gi-oh or Pokémon, then you should definitely stop by. I haven't gotten my Magic cards out of drawer in two decades and they no longer publish the comics I collected. The one star is not a slight on the quality of their service, their friendliness, or their primary business. It just wasn't what I was looking for. I was hoping that it was the Book Broker of yore. I will have to make the drive to Bloomington ot go to the Half Price Books Outlet.

Their sign outside may occasionally pander and make them seem like a respectable business, but their management is incredibly rude and unprofessional. They have a bunch of CDs on the floor covered in dust and they've probably been there at least a decade without anybody looking at them. I spent quite a while going through them and was going to buy a handful. When I went to pay, their manager took out his phone and barcode scanned them and told me I couldn't have them for what they were typically priced because they are worth more. These were not particularly valuable but someone on amazon had an expensive copy, not what they actually sold for. I should have just said have fun looking at them but I ended up paying $50 more than I should have. There is not a single person locally who would have bought these besides me. They had a number of years to have done so, these were not things that just now came into the store. They also yelled at one of my friends for attempting to look at the condition of a record. Used to love this place, but a couple of people in charge made it to where I will never be back. From reading the reviews, I see plenty of people had problems with employees being rude. I've also tried to trade in the past instead of saying they aren't interested, they essentially laugh at what you have.

First visit today. They have a big selection of music, movies, and books however most the books are in rough shape and are books that only very specific people would be after. They also have a lot of comic books and overpriced trading cards and toys.

One week, great guy went and found the comics needed from back stock with a smile and great attitude. Exactly 7 days later, a miserable guy from a failed Molly Hatchet tribute band was so off-putting...after no less than 3 attempts to be rational and nice...that we left and will NOT be going back. Spend $150 a week on comics on average. Gladly be spending that money elsewhere from here on out.

Went there for the first time two weeks ago and got most of what I wanted but they won't let you look through the comic bins upstairs yourself which is half the fun. You have to give them a list and then they go look for you.The employee I had was great. He was easy to talk to and friendly basically being a professional and it only took him about 10 minutes to find what I wanted which was 28 comics I think .I spent almost 150 dollars and decided to come back the next weekend and spend about the same amount or more and I had a friend that was going to get some things too. We get there almost 2 hours before they close and there was 1 car in the parking lot. We go in and there were only 2 people sitting down looking through dvd boxes that I could see . So I go up to the counter and some old man probably around 70-75 years old dressed like a biker or something was sitting down behind the counter with another employee that doing something else. So I just walk up and tell him I was here last weekend and bought some comics and I had a new list I was wanting to see if they had.It was 35 comics of the same character which would have been really easy and quick to find just like last time. But as soon as heard me say the word list he got immediately angry and yelled at me "Not tonight you ain't! There's only two of us here I ain't got time to go looking for your list!". I was kind of confused wondering what I did to set him off like that and I just said the first thing that came to mind which was "Oh ok I'm sorry we'll just go somewhere else" and that made him even more angry and he cocked his head staring angrily at me and said "You trying to get all 'attitudey' with me now". I said "No I'm not trying to get an attitude with you at all you said you couldn't do it so we're just going to leave.Its no problem at all."He's just staring at me and it feels like no matter what i say or do its just going make him even angrier.And then he says "Give me your list. How many you got on this damn thing?" I just wanted to get out of this bizarre situation I found myself in and told him again"Don't worry about it man.I don't want to put you out or anything you said there were only two of you here and you couldn't do it so we're just going to leave.Thanks." I was trying to be as nice as possible to him but he cocked his head and stares at me again like I'm in big trouble now. We're walking to the door and he's yelling something at us on the way out. I don't know what he was saying but I'm not going to give this unhinged man any more time to berate me over their own store policy. I didn't feel safe being there anyway at that point.One of the weirdest situations I've ever been in.I asked my friend was I doing something wrong for him be so hostile like that? He said "No way dude you didn't do anything wrong you could tell that he was looking for someone to go off on and you were the one that got it.That was crazy." Obviously we're never going back there ever again. I wasn't going to leave a review I was just going to forget about it but I wanted to check and see if this has happened to anyone else and the very first review I read is a guy saying similar things with the staff had happened to him too.About how rude and unprofessional they were to him also and he wouldn't be going back either. So that means that the guy I dealt with wasn't just having a bad day.People lose their cool sometimes it happens. This seems like a regularly occurring thing. Well anyway we went to comic quest and they let you browse the bins there which is my favorite part and they have a buy 2 back issues get 1 free deal which saved me alot of money that otherwise would have gone to book broker.So to end I just want to thank book broker for that and my future savings too.

Great old bookstore. It's moved into other used media, and comic books since I visited last before they moved. Glad to see the book selection is still there. I didn't have time or energy to get to all of the stuff, as i don't do stairs. Next time. They had a comic book artist appearance when I visited didn't want to bother anyone by going upstairs.

The staff and the owner were very amazing people. Very knowledgeable they have a little bit of everything. Sold a couple of basketball cards. And picked up a couple of new items. Highly recommended.