Ghostwriting No. 2 : Old and Rare Books

You've all heard the stories about books found in an attic or old house that turned out to be worth thousands of dollars. You might have some old books of your own - and someone might have told you they're not worth anything. What's going on here? Aren't old books valuable?

As with any collector's item, an old book's monetary value is based on market demand, which is hard to gauge. Researching the prices for yourself on the internet can be tricky if you don't know the right places to look, because most websites with books for sale show what people are asking for a book. They don't tell you how often copies of those books sell at that price. If you learn where to look, you can get information, but then there's one more caveat that is also true for any collector's market: a dealer won't pay you the price at which the book will sell. It's not personal, and it's not a cheat. An expert needs to make a profit or change jobs. Basic economics.

So how do you know what you've got and what's a fair price? There's an incredible amount to know about this, but let me tell you three simple things you can check to get an idea of what you've got.

1. Condition. If you want to sell at a collector's item price, the book has to be in excellent condition. Not just good for its age - excellent. Part of what drives the price in collectors' markets is the fact that, after fifty or a hundred or two hundred years, most things get damaged, and collectors will pay money for the few left that aren't. If your book has any of the following defects, then it probably has no value at all:
- Mold
- Missing pages or parts of pages
- Library marks (there are exceptions to this in rare cases)
- Broken binding (unless the book is worth enough to repair, also a rare case)
Beyond that, a book dealer will check for writing on the pages, little yellow or brown spots called 'foxing,' stains on pages or cover, scuff marks or fraying on the cover, loose stitching in the binding, and other damage that will lower the book's value. Even just a little damage can slash the price heavily if the book is common or not particularly in demand. For example, in the 1800's a lot of writers wanted to write stories like Pride and Prejudice, and some of them just weren't very good. If you have a pretty old book, even one with gilt decorations on the cover and no writing inside, and the endpapers - the pages that attach to the insides of the front and back cover - are split down the middle with cloth showing through, and it's one of those just not very good not Pride and Prejudice novels, you have a pretty old book, not one worth money.

2. Production Quality. If you own an inexpensive book from before 1980, you've probably noticed that the pages have already started to turn yellow or even a little brown. This is called age-toning, and it's a sign that the publisher didn't use high quality paper, which means that the book wasn't made to last, which in turn probably means the book is either common or wasn't expected to become memorable. Cheap paper was also popular with pirate and reprint publishers. A very few pirated editions have some value, and even some of the books from reprint or other cheap publishers, but these are very uncommon, especially since cheap paper eventually makes a book useless as a book. After a hundred years, some cheap paper turns dark brown and brittle to the point that the text is unreadable and the pages actually break off.

Books that were made to last - books made with high-quality, low-acidity paper - are what the collectors want. If the pages of your books are still mostly white (and keeping them out of hot and wet areas is a good way to help them stay white), or better yet if they're still mostly white and have a sort of fabric-like texture to them, that's a sign of possible value. Not a promise of possible value, because since the invention of books, there have always been rich, crazy people who paid artists to make really beautiful, high quality copies of books that have no worth to anyone but the person who commissioned the book. But white paper in an old book means someone wanted the book to have value in the future, and clean white paper means someone who owned the book thought the book did have value and deserved care and preservation.

3. Age. It is true that very old books in very good condition made from very good materials tend to have some value. So how old is very old? Opinions vary based on demand. One person might be very excited to have a book that is one hundred years old, regardless of its content, and another person might specialize in collecting books from the late seventeenth century. Our general rule for 'very old' is about 150 years. If someone has kept a book well since around the time of the U. S. Civil War, it's probably a book worth keeping.

That said, not every old book is very valuable, and it's not true that the older the book gets, the more valuable it is. One of the most valuable books in our collection isn't even seventy yet, while another book that was over 350 years old sold for a mere $200. Certainly, the older book was scarcer, but it was also basically a self help book, and as we all know, what's considered self help today is considered kind of silly ten years from now. This 350-year-old self help manual was worth $200 partly because it was an attractive volume and an old one, and partly because it was kind of silly times thirty-five, which makes it actually quite interesting from a sociological perspective, since there were sections on the identification of incarnate demons as well as sections on how to get a date.

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Now, that's not an exhaustive guide to book value. There are, in fact, thousands of books on the values of books, and there are hundreds of serious experts, thousands of partial experts or experienced professionals, and thousands of crackpots, and not even the very best guides are totally authoritative all the time for every place in the world, since (for example) I can certainly find a discriminating collector in Iowa City who would love to have a signed copy of one of Paul Engle's scarcer books, but someone in Manchester or Glasgow might have to wait a bit to find someone who would appreciate the book. Those three points are, however, three easy ways to begin gauging which of two kinds your old book is: the kind worth money to somebody, or the kind worth the memories you attach to it. Both have value. If you're not sure which kind yours has, feel free to ask.*

Next week, I'll tell you about a different part of the book business, and one I like just as much as finding wonderful old books: finding wonderful young readers. There are an awful lot of grumpy people who keep telling me that kids these days just don't care about books, but I've got compelling evidence to the contrary. I'll also share a few tips on how to get kids interested in books - as usual, far from an exhaustive study, but hopefully useful information.


*Note: I don't appraise books. I buy books, and it wouldn't be ethical for me to make a purchase offer on a book I'd appraised. So I just answer book value questions for the genuinely curious when my schedule permits. If you would like to speak to a professional book appraiser, we can recommend the ones we trust.