How to Identify, Collect and Sell Rare Books
The Housing Works Bookshop Café , one of the nation’s most famous bookstores, recently showcased one of its most expensive titles, the first American edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, selling for $ 4,000. On their Instagram account, they pointed out clear signs of this rare seal, including specific typing errors, as well as its features, including a foldable map of Middle-earth.
Get outside the Amazon
Before donating or throwing away your old books, you can check to see if they are valuable (even if you just want to maximize your tax deduction when donating them to a housing combine). It’s a little more difficult than searching Amazon, which mixes different editions and prints.
The American Library Association’s rare books and manuscripts section has a long FAQ section on identifying rare books . They advise you to check the bookseller databases – try AbeBooks , a book market frequented by professionals and collectors that offers better tools for distinguishing between editions and prints than Amazon. Or try viaLibri , which combines search results from AbeBooks, Amazon, eBay and a dozen other sources. ALA advises:
Be careful to find as close a match as possible, not only in terms of publication details, but also in terms of conditions, anchors, and other unique characteristics. You can also search some of the auction sites to find realized prices on recent sales.
You can also Google your title and terms such as “identify edition” to find any pages that list insignia from specific editions. For example, Raptis Rare Books lists the features, marks, and even 16 bugs that appear in the first edition of The Hobbit .
If you can find several copies of your publication on sale at the same price, then this is what your book is worth. But if you are still not sure which edition you have, but there are indications that it may be rare or valuable, you need to consult a specialist.
Get an estimate
Dr. Terry Belanger , founding director of the School of Rarities, tells Lifehacker that there is no one rule of thumb for identifying a valuable book. That is why he built an entire curriculum around the study and care of rare books. You cannot quickly find rare books at a glance. It takes time, education, and access to a lot of research.
Dr. Belanger can point out the characteristics and ‘behavior’ of certain prints, eras and editions: “Penguin paperback is known to be durable. I’ve seen penguins from the 1930s who are still strong. ” Note the identification marks on the above copy of the Fellowship , which may have been identified by a Housing Works rare book expert. If you suspect you have a valuable book, take it to such a specialist. Typically, this expert will be the bookseller, who can not only estimate the cost of your book, but also offer to pay for it.
This offer, of course, will include some opportunity for the seller to make a profit, but he will be upfront about it. You do not need to be afraid of being deceived. Look for booksellers who are affiliated with the American Antique Book Sellers Association or the International League of Antique Book Sellers. (The Library of Congress also recommends finding dealers through the ABAA.) According to the ALA FAQ, these booksellers “must adhere to a strict code of ethics to protect their customers.”
If you’re still apprehensive, check out seller ratings on Yelp and AbeBooks (ask their username). Rare books are not a highly profitable or day-to-day business, so if you see this seller have proven themselves well, you can trust them in evaluating your book properly. Or you can get a second opinion.
Know what’s important
For a book to be valuable, it must satisfy several requirements: it must be coveted (according to a famous author, most books published in the last century will never become valuable, no matter how rare they are), it must be relatively rare (by at least in its specific part). edition), it should be in good condition, at least relative to all other existing copies. While not all old books are valuable, many of the most valuable books are old. All these factors influence each other.
Desirability
“The word ‘rare’ has been misused,” says Dr. Belanger. Many rare books are cheap or even useless. (Think of a cheap, forgettable novel that only sold a thousand copies. Even if you have the last copy left, that doesn’t mean someone needs it.)
Conversely, says Dr. Belanger, “A coveted book is a ‘rare book’, even if it is not rare.” Some books are only valuable for their cultural significance, as are other ephemera, such as the original Woodstock tickets, or Superman’s first appearance, or one of Apple’s first computer guides. Of course, these artifacts are also relatively rare because they were planned to be thrown away in a few years, months or days. High demand increases cost only when combined with low supply:
Rarity
Rarity still matters. Only 400 copies of the 1896 Kelmscott Chaucer have survived; one is available on AbeBooks for $ 137,500. Even especially special reproductions of this book sell for thousands of dollars . If 10,000 copies of this book were published, it would certainly be cheaper.
On the other hand, a popular magazine usually does not gain much value: the market is flooded. National Geographic has a circulation of 12 million, so there is always someone who wants to get rid of their copies. (This is why my local library sold 10-year-old copies for 5 cents apiece.) But, as Dr. Belanger says, even common nouns can become rare: “My Aunt Agnes collected the entire circulation of Life magazine, and everyone laughed at him. her. But now the full set is estimated at five figures. “
Rarity also applies to a particular edition or even to a particular seal. There are millions of copies of The Fellowship of the Ring ; You can buy a used copy for five bucks on Amazon , less at many used book stores. And that’s why early editions cost more. And one edition of a book may have multiple copies, and that in each of these prints, minor errors may be corrected or other tiny changes may be made that distinguish them. None of these details would have made these early copies valuable if the Fellowship were not highly respected and widely read.
The first prints of the beginning of a known series are usually more valuable than those of the last, because they are usually less common. By the time they released the seventh book in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows series , publishers knew they would sell millions of copies. So they ordered the first edition much larger than the one on the Philosopher’s Stone . Copies of this first edition will be easy to find over a long, long time, especially given that such a large number of readers will keep them in top condition.
Age
How old is the old book? Depends on your goal. The above copy of The Fellowship was published in 1954, but it stands out sharply as it is the first American edition of one of the most famous books in the world. Unless your book is particularly noteworthy, age really won’t be an important factor until you start falling into the 1800s or earlier.
“Certain categories of books tend to be more in demand,” says the ALA FAQ, “including all books printed before 1501, books in English printed before 1641, books printed in America before 1801, and books printed in the west of the Mississippi until 1850 “. Here we are talking about books that are rare, because at that time and in that place any books were rare. “The Oxenford clerk had thirty books in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales,” says Dr. Belanger, “and he was very proud of it.”
State
If you treat books as physical objects, not just information, every crease, mark, wear and tear can affect its price. Only very important and rare books can keep their value in poor condition. There is no such formula as “one torn off page = 1.2% of the sales price”. Price is relative and your book will be compared to others of the same or better physical quality. Remember, the more your book deteriorates, the more work the buyer will have to do to prevent further deterioration.
Take care of your books
“Books are usually created with some understanding of their likely use,” says Dr. Belanger. This is why a computer manual or almanac is published in cheap paperback, whereas a novel usually comes out in hardcover first, for the serious reader who intends to keep it on the shelf for decades. (If successful, the novel is republished in paperback. If it is very successful, it comes out in an even cheaper “mass market” format that falls apart after one read on an airplane.)
When you pass books down from generation to generation, you stretch them much longer than expected. Sunlight will dim the bedspread in just a few years – Doctor. Belanger says reds and yellows are the first to go away, and varying moisture levels have a negative impact on their materials. Hardcover fabric can shrink faster than the cardboard underneath.
If you want it to last long, says Dr. Belanger, “don’t take the book where it doesn’t want to.” Do not open it any wider than it bends naturally; keep it away from sunlight and moisture. Even moving a book from one climate to another does some damage, he said; a book that is shipped from England to Arizona can dry out and fall apart.
Go deeper
Rare books can be expensive, but they’re not what the money is looking for. Do it for the love of books. Dr. Belanger always recommends collecting books that make you feel strong. He also encourages you to learn about collection practices, which involve much more than buying and selling.
You can visit the School of Rare Books yourself or check the published programs and bibliography . You can also attend a 2-week Antique Book Seminar to meet experts and learn more about the techniques from librarians, booksellers, and other experts.
There are several general guidelines for identifying and evaluating books, such as Bill McBride’s Pocket Guide to identifying early editions . Each publisher has a different way of labeling first editions; For example, Scribner always adds a small A to the title page. While Dr. Belanger can name a few of these marks, he says, “All novelty collectors today have a McBride, because who can remember?”
Digging deeper, you may end up collecting books about book collecting. Many of the books on the Rare Book School reading list are expensive in and of themselves; for example, used copies of one 1970 lithographic reference are selling for between $ 26 and $ 193 .
The collector makes this additional interest rather than being able to afford the book. “If you have deep pockets, you can buy the first edition, the minty dust jacket [copies] of every John Irving novel, and do it in about six hours. It will probably cost you about $ 60, 70 thousand, ”says Dr. Belanger. “This is not a collection. This is shopping. “