• The Deal.
  • We have all heard about the dealer that while sifting through some used book store or thrift shop and paid $5.00 for a book worth $50.00, $100.00 or even $1,000.00. You may even have done this yourself. I have, I'd be a lier if I said that it never happened. But there is a dark side to this as well, and I see all the time at small and estate auctions, at used book shops and antique stores. You've traded up or found that $100.00 book. While the book is in stock it's an asset. Now you need to sell it to keep the cash flow going. How long before that book is just taking up space on the shelf? Would you be willing to take less of a profit to move it? or trade for another title? Most dealers would say yes. But what happens when you have so much invested you can't afford to? No one likes to take a loss. But a fast talking seller, a flux in the market, or just a bad judgment call can bring this about in short order. This is what I see often. A dealer that traded or bought that $100.00 book and paid $75.00 or $80.00 sometimes in trade the full $100.00 for it. Now they have to sell or trade the book for more than it is valued at, and it sits taking up space. In some cases this can benefit the store or the one doing the selling with good bragging rights. It can also be disastrous to the bottom line. Lets face it whether your a collector or a dealer its all about the bottom line, how much is my collection worth? At the auction a book, or any other item for that matter, will go up on the auction block. Something that you've seen a hundred times in as many places. Then you will see two or more bidders take the bid to enormous and extreme amounts for an item that values at only $50 or $75 dollars. I have seen on multiple occasions a poor condition book, that in fine condition is valued at $50.00, be sold off at $200.00 or more.
• The Miss-represented
  • Then there is the miss-represented. I attended an auction that was boasting they had signed editions of Mark Twain's books in near mint condition. Durring the preview for the auction I over heared some local dealers talking about what great find these books where. After locating the books stacked neatly by the auctioneer's podium, I took a good long look at them. The books signature, as they called it, was a machine printing on the inside of the front cover and not an actual signature. Then taking a look at the condition, they were in poor condition. The spines were ripped off, the body of the books were loose from the covers, someone had written in them. I figuerd that the whole lot was worth $5.00 just for the sake of reading them. But I watched as they went up for auction and the bidding started out at $25.00 and was quickly raised to over $300.00. This was at a physical auction where one had the chance to appraise before purchase, it's even worse on the net. I'm constantly hearing stories about this seller or that seller shipping a book that was miss-represented. One I came across told of a dealer that was selling just the dust jackets but the sales pitch was written so that the prospective buyer thought they were getting the whole book, and paid about book value for it too. If you are selling just the dust jacket then it needs to be clear that that is what is for sale^[1].
  • Another to watch out for is dealers selling photo copied or scanned books or articles. This might not be so bad if again it's clear up front that is what is for sale and its priced appropiatly. But I'm seeing articles written and hearing complaints that there are a number of people who are selling these where the sales pitch sounds like you're getting the whole and original book. Their charging the value guide price for it and delivering inferiour product.
• The Trust
  • "Why should I buy from you when the next guy has it for a couple of dollars less?" Well, Trust is a good start. Is there a good description of the book or in a physical location can you, under no presher, evaluate the book. Is the terms of sale posted. Do the sales staff answer your questions to the best of their ability or help you find the answer.
• The Value
  • Value of a book is like the value of stock in the stock market. At any time it can rise or fall. If everone rushes out to buy then the price goes up. If everyone rushes out to sell the price drops. Look at what happens when the market is flooded. Where there are multitudes trying to undercut the next guy so to make a sale all by a couple of dollars.
  • Here's an example:
    "Museum of Antiquity, Illustrated By: L.W. Yaggy and T.L. Haines, 1880-1882" This book was valued in the 1990's for between $125.00 and $250.00. depending on condition, printing and publisher. Around 2001, with variable price places on the internet catching on as the places to sell, the average price fell to $25.00 for any condition under mint. With the ability to pick up a copy for $9.95 if you're watching the market, or you can get a photo copy of the complete book for $14.95. Also scarcity or presumed scarcity can affect the value. A limited print run of 5,000 is worth more than a standard print run of 100,000.
• What Value
  • To value a book you need to know the publisher, copyright, edition, printing, condition, and if it had a dust jacket or any other part to it that can come off or be lost. Oh and of course the title, author and or editor. Starting with the price guides, find the book's listing and compair it to your copy. There are too many books for one value guide to hold them all so you may have to look through many different ones. Different editions of the same guide may have different listings too. Use search engions on the internet. Not only will this give you the major sites and the variable priced multi-dealer^[2] places but it will also give the lesser traveled stores that may not belong to the multi-dealer agragators. After finding listings that are aproxamatlly the same grade of condition and edition/printing than take the prices the book is being sold for at the various places and do an average price. It's unusual for every one to be selling for the same price, but if they are then its a safe bet to say yours is worth that too. If for some reason you have a copy that is in better condition than any you can find, then as a general rule I add 25% to the average. (Remember this is to get a price you can use for insurance of your collection.)
• ^[1] A dust jacket can be worth more than a whole book, but its a good idea to keep them together if possable as it can raise the value of a book between ¼ and ½ the price.
• ^[2] A variable priced, multi-dealer shop are represented by places like abe.com, alibris.com, amazon.com, ebay.com, etc. you will notice that I try to refrain from useing any one of these or any other web-site or store as examples. This is because I don't want to pursuade or dissuade customers from making up their own minds about the stores they frequent. The same goes for search engions.

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