Texts of gold: The very particular, and sometimes topsy-turvy, world of rare book values
“It’s 150 years old, it must be worth something!”
But it ain’t necessarily so.
Most antiquarian bookdealers have lost count of the times they’ve had to break the news that a cherished family Bible is, from a commercial perspective, worthless…
…and most also have a few tales to tell about the occasions they’ve discovered, in among the treasured trash, an almost overlooked volume that would fetch a fortune at auction.
There’s really not much substitute for getting a pro to value your books if you’re thinking of selling them (or need a valuation for other purposes, such as insurance), and if you contact a bookdealer belonging to one of the major professional associations such as the ABA or PBFA you can be reasonably confident of not being ripped off.
Still, there’s a certain amount of research you can do on your own, at least to help you figure out whether it’s worth seeking advice in the first place.
Online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and AbeBooks can provide useful indicators of the prices being asked for a given book (though bear in mind that “asked for” isn’t the same as “sold for”). Less well-known is AddALL.com, a search engine which returns results from multiple different bookselling sites.
More important than any technology, though, is understanding what makes an individual book valuable (or not) — and why two apparently similar volumes can differ dramatically.
The basic principle is all about supply and demand. Rare books achieve their comparatively high prices because they are sought-after by book collectors or, in some cases, by specialist libraries and other institutions. As a result, the market for rare books resembles more that for art or antiques than it does the market for new books.
But there are no absolute rules for determining the value of a book; not only each title, but each individual copy of that title, must be assessed individually.
I’ll repeat part of that sentence, because it’s of paramount importance:
Each individual copy must be assessed. It’s not just “the book” but the specific copy of the book that has, or doesn’t have, value.
Some of the factors influencing value include:
Scarcity. As in any field of collecting, all other things being equal, a scarcer book will be of more value than a commoner book. (Which is why family Bibles are rarely worth much. There’s no shortage of them.)
Condition. For most book collectors, the physical condition of a volume is a salient consideration. The most desirable copy of a book is, in general, that which is as close as possible to the condition in which it was originally issued.
Small defects such as minor marks or tears may not make a substantial difference to the value of a highly desirable book.
However, as the extent of wear and damage grows, the value drops sharply until the book can be sold only as a “reading copy” — one which is adequate for reading or consultation, but not in good enough condition to interest a collector.
Below the condition level of the reading copy, major defects such as extensive insect damage or large portions missing from pages will eliminate almost all value.
Original state and completeness. Just as collectors wish the condition of a book to have deteriorated as little as possible since the day of its creation, they also wish it to be in exactly the form it was issued.
This means that value is greatly enhanced by the presence of all original elements, such as (if they existed) dust jackets, tissue guards protecting illustrations, etc.
On many collectible books, dust jackets are particularly important, because they contribute so much to the visual identity of a volume and yet are damaged so easily; so the condition of a dust jacket can make all the difference between a mediocre valuation and a high one.
This quest for completeness also means that where a book was issued as a multi-volume set, collectors generally desire to acquire the whole set rather than individual volumes, referred to as “odd volumes”.
The value of an odd volume can therefore be much less than the layperson might expect: for example, if a certain three-volume set is valued at £300, a single volume of that set on its own might be worth only £30.
First edition. (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?)
Many books are, over time, published in more than one edition. In bookselling terminology, editions are versions of the book which are substantively different from one another. For example, a book may appear in a hardback edition, a paperback edition, an illustrated edition, a scholarly edition with footnotes, and so on.
However, when a particular edition is merely reprinted in identical form because all the copies of its original print run have been sold, that does not constitute a further edition. Instead, it’s termed a “second [or third, fourth, etc.] impression” of that edition. On the same principle, the initial print run is called that edition’s “first impression”.
There’s no need to get over-obsessive about these numbers. From a collector’s perspective what it boils down to, for most books, is: first edition good, first impression of first edition REALLY good, all other editions much less good.
Although there are exceptions, very often the most valuable form of a book is the first impression of the first edition, and subsequent reprints have less value. This ties in, of course, with the collector’s general desire to possess a book exactly as it first appeared, or as close as possible.
In an additional complex twist, the first edition published in the author’s own language in his/her country of birth and/or residence is often considered the most desirable. So there can be strange cases where, for example, an English author’s book was first published in Canada…but the British first edition remains the one that collectors really want.
Associations. Historical connections between a particular copy of a book and a famous person or event may enhance its value — for example, if the book has been signed by the author, or contains the personal bookplate of a noted historical figure.
Binding. Although most collectors desire to acquire books in their original bindings, occasionally a later binding may, if particularly fine, actually enhance the value.
This sometimes occurs with lavish Victorian bindings of leather and gilt, for example. Even books that are not otherwise of any interest to collectors (or dealers) may be given value by such bindings, purely for their aesthetic qualities.
It’s relatively unusual, though; many bindings that look ornate today were pretty humdrum by 19th century standards.
Vogue. (No, not the magazine.)
At any given time some books and authors are, quite simply, fashionable among collectors while others are not, and this has a pronounced effect on prices.
The popularity of individual books or authors — and therefore their value — may also differ markedly among collectors from different countries, although the migration of the rare book trade to the internet over the last 20 years has dramatically reduced geographical price variations. Online ordering now makes it much easier for collectors to buy from overseas, and as a result, the effects of demand on price are more consistent internationally.
(It used to be, for example, that Anglophile American collectors bizarrely made Churchill’s books more valuable in the US than in the UK.)
Finally, there are also two factors which are very commonly believed to have an impact on the value of individual books…but which in reality are not as significant as those we’ve discussed above.
Age. Excepting the very earliest printed works, which do have some value because of their sheer antiquity, books are rarely desirable merely because of their age, and an older book is by no means necessarily more valuable than a newer one — indeed, some books from the last few decades can be highly attractive to collectors and very scarce.
In particular, very large numbers of books were published in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries that are now of little interest to either collectors or readers.
Literary merit. The quality or importance of the book as a literary work, rather than a physical object, certainly has an effect on its popularity among collectors and therefore its value, but is not on its own sufficient to imbue the physical copy with value.
To take a rather extreme example, a first edition of a relatively trivial children’s book (mentioning no names related to adolescent wizardry) might be worth a four-figure sum, while a modern paperback edition of the complete works of Shakespeare would be valued at only a few pounds.
Of course, those are extremes, and first or early editions of major works of literature, science, philosophical thought and suchlike do nearly always attract a premium, sometimes a considerable one.
But in the world of bookselling, where rareness trumps significance, L. Frank Baum can still command a much heftier price tag than Socrates. Maybe you should hang on to those classics, after all.
END NOTE
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