These books are going away — but not if you’re willing to pay.
The prices of six Dr. Seuss titles exploded on eBay after the beloved author’s publisher said it would stop selling them because they contained racist images.
Prospective buyers placed bids in the hundreds of dollars Tuesday for vintage copies of the books that were listed for as little as $4.44 over the past week.
A 1955 edition of “On Beyond Zebra!” fetched a leading bid of $670 by 10:15 a.m. Eastern time — less than a day after it was put up for auction at a starting price of just $14.99.
A copy of “The Cat’s Quizzer” from 1976 similarly saw its top offer skyrocket to $510 after it was listed for $9.99 on Monday.
An early 1960s copy of “Scrambled Eggs Super!” listed Saturday for just under $8 didn’t get a single bid in its first three days on eBay, but the price jumped to $565 in less than three hours following the news that it would no longer be published.
A “First Book Club Edition” of “If I Ran the Zoo” — which has drawn fire for its offensive caricatures of Asian and African people — received three bids for less than $10 in its first five days on the market before the offer to beat surged to $355 on Tuesday.
A 1947 copy of “McElligot’s Pool” listed for less than five bucks last Friday was recently going for $620, while a 1937 edition of “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” fetched a $305 bid about an hour after it was listed Tuesday morning.
All six books were also in short supply on Amazon, where third-party sellers are selling collectible editions for thousands of dollars.
Amazon warned buyers that four of the books were out of print with “limited availability.” Only “If I Ran the Zoo” and “McElligot’s Pool” didn’t bear that notice on Tuesday — but the only copies available ran from $920.99 to $4,500.
Neither Amazon nor eBay immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday.