Book values - an unsolvable mystery?

Peter Dobrovits

Manuscript received January 2004

In many cases the value of a book is not easy to determine. Just because a book is old or scarce does not necessarily mean it is valuable. Comparison with other rare items must be done with care, since books are not as unique as a painting or a sculpture. The reason and purpose for which book values may be sought will often determine the final 'value'. All copies of the same book are not worth the same amount. There is no universal guide available for arriving at a book's value and there may be a whole range of prices listed in various guides for the same title which could add to the confusion. Most of us - at least those of us who have fallen into the bottomless pit called 'book collecting' - must have wondered from time-to-time, what our book collection may be worth. If one wants to rely on valuation for insurance, the insurer either refuses to consider it at all, or at best shrugs his shoulders and recommends that one turns for advice to a professional valuer.

One can, of course - provided one has kept a fairly accurate account of money spent - come up with a sum that may or may not reflect the true value of the collection. The main drawback of this method is, of course, time. By this I mean the time between the date the book was bought and the date when such an assessment is made. As we know, things of all kinds tend to either increase or decrease in value, very often depending on something as unreliable as fashion. The 'valuable tome' acquired at great sacrifice at a certain time in one's life could not be given away later on, since shifting tastes dictate that the item has become 'unfashionable'. Take for instance, all those books full of sermons published during the Victorian era which today may be worth something, if for nothing else, the physical appearance of the books, or their binding, but presumably not their content. At the same time, an insignificant pamphlet originally bought for pennies may be worth a king's ransom.

The first major hurdle facing the serious book collector, as in so many other spheres, is fashion, which more than any other consideration will dictate the real contemporary value of the book. Another point needing consideration is its scarcity or uniqueness. Some people tend to think that a 'collectible' item, such as a book, a record, a piece of china, or a tea cosy for that matter, could be gainfully compared with a painting, or a piece of sculpture in the process of arriving at a real value. It is almost like saying one could compare apples and sheep. This sort of reasoning suffers from a logical flaw, because while a painting or a sculpture is normally unique, those so-called 'collectibles' are usually not. Neither are books. Thanks to a 15th century invention, books - virtually identical books - have been produced since that time in ever increasing numbers. In many cases the 'scarcity' of a title lies in the fact that the item is no longer 'in print' and if one wishes to acquire one, only the antiquarian market is capable of supplying it. Of the many misconceptions regarding book values under which quite a number of people seem to suffer, there is nothing more misleading than the belief that every copy of a certain book is worth the same amount. Our mythical collector - often the one whose main goal is to acquire as many volumes as possible, regardless of content, since the books thus acquired are not intended to be read anyway - having discovered in a second-hand catalogue a copy of a title he happens to own, sees the price at which the book is offered for sale, immediately assumes that this is what his copy is worth!

Books are not unique because, as it was once said, habent sua fata libelli (or: each little book has its own story.) Just because the author, title, publisher and date of the two happen to coincide, a serious collector will not assume the two copies are identical, unless he can visually compare them. Let us suppose that one was maintained in good condition, while the other was used as a doorstop. One has been signed by the author or some famous owner, while the other is blank but for a huge ink spot on its title page. But for these 'minor' differences, the two are the same. Are they really worth the same amount? Imagine, if you like, a row of desirable residences being built in a street by some enterprising developer. The houses are being built to the same specification, based on the same plan, using the same building materials. They all face in the same direction, and for all intents and purposes they are identical. They are all priced the same, after all there is absolutely no difference between them and even the most fastidious buyer could not find one better than all the others.

Let us suppose that after about ten years, miraculously all ten houses are again up for sale. Do we really believe that the situation will be exactly the same as it was when they were first sold? That each and every house will have 'matured' the same way resulting in identical values and prices? If that were the case, it would be the second miracle. What is more likely to happen is that while one house was carefully extended with additions and refinements, another was kept in good but not excellent condition, while a third was so neglected that to find a buyer for it would - according to the selling agent - constitute the third miracle. Does the picture look familiar? Another fact that must be kept in mind with regard to book prices is the purpose for which a valuation is sought. If one is interested in the value of one's book collection for the sake of knowing 'what am I worth?' without the slightest intention of selling, the value one can assign to it is somewhat different to the value one has to establish if the books intended are for sale.

These two situations create their own difficulties, but the second one contains a trap into which many people - including experienced booksellers - can fall very easily. Allow me to quote from a very reliable source:

A note on the valuation of books. Members of the public with old books ... in their possession often wonder how to ascertain the value of such material. Unfortunately, there is no single reference work or 'price guide' which can be relied upon to prove the current values of antiquarian books, nor is there any simple way to explain in a few words how such values are determined. The value of a book is affected by a variety of factors, including the intrinsic importance of the work, its scarcity, collectors' interest in it, its binding, condition, provenance, and the significance of any inscription it may contain...

This quotation comes from the current Membership directory of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers Limited (ANZAAB) and speaks for itself. Some people assume that because a particular title is a scarce item in one country at a given time, the identical item will attract the same attention and will command the same price in another country or at another time. There is nothing further from the truth. A book may be a treasure in one place and could be regarded as trash - or at least of no interest at all - somewhere else. At this point it may be useful to look at the 'duality' of book values. Every book, without exception, must be regarded as having such a duality of values that must be assessed each time the question of book value arises. The first of such values, as mentioned in the quotation above, is the 'intrinsic importance' of the item. This, of course refers to the intellectual content of the book and has nothing to do with its physical makeup. The intellectual importance of such books remains the same whether in book form, or as a manuscript, paperback, computer format or microfilm.

Copies of Darwin's On the origin of species are being sought even today in recognition of the originality of its thought, as well as for it pitting the thinking of the creation story against scientific facts. Its cultural and theological implications are still hotly debated over one hundred years later. If one also happens to have a first edition (and first printing) of this fundamental work, the value of which runs into tens of thousands of dollars, then it is definitely not because of its beauty, for there is nothing in the unattractive binding that would call attention to its importance and a layman giving a cursory glance at a row of books would not pick it out as a treasure. If in addition its covers also carry the grime of a century, those not well versed in book-lore might offer a dollar for it.

Albert Einstein's 'Theory of relativity' appeared as an article in a German scientific journal. The idea represents a quantum shift in scientific thinking and is regarded as fundamental to modern physics. If a collector is lucky enough to obtain an original copy of that issue of that journal, the price he will have had to pay for it is definitely not due to its physical appearance. One of the main criteria of these 'intellectually important' works is this: they are kept in print and in the market at all times, because there is a demand - not for the physical item, but for the intellectual content. Many of them appear in cheap reprints as well as in de-luxe editions and, judging by the success of such commercial enterprises as the Folio Society, books of intellectual, that is, intrinsic value remain a staple item in the upper reaches of the book market.

At the other end of the spectrum are those books which are sought after and collected principally because of their physical makeup. By 'physical makeup' is meant that the book becomes valuable in spite of its intellectual content. I do not mean to imply that quite a large proportion of such books are without any value apart from their looks - although it must be admitted, that some might be regarded as falling into the 'useless junk' category except for some physically redeeming feature - but the principal reason for their value is the physical makeup or some other physical component. Their value is conditional, as quoted above, on factors mentioned in the ANZAAB statement as 'binding, condition, provenance, significant inscription'. Once one begins to talk of binding, provenance, owner's signatures, marginal manuscript notes, one is entering the territory of 'unique' books. It is most unlikely one would find another volume possessing the same features, and here, at last, one could use the criteria as used in assessing the value of paintings, sculptures and any other art made as one-off, a unique piece for which there can be no replacement should it be destroyed.

The ANZAAB document already referred to very correctly points out that '... there is no single reference work or "price guide" which can be relied upon to prove the current values of antiquarian books...' In addition, DJ McAdam makes this valuable observation:

...a used or rare book, like any other collectible, is worth precisely what someone else is willing to pay for it at a particular point in time. Value is a personal, and constantly changing, concept. ... There is no one official catalogue of used and rare books, and while such an immense undertaking might at last be plausible with the advent of computer databases, I would not foresee that even that would be sufficient.

With the appearance of the internet, however, the task has become somewhat less onerous than before. There are now a number of sites on the internet devoted to antiquarian book prices. One site includes entries from many other such sites and claims to have on its file entries for some forty million books, showing author, title, imprint, sale price and often the name of the bookseller as well. The file is truly international and here, perhaps for the first time, one could gather information on comparative book values, or rather on what various booksellers regard as the value of their wares. There is a danger, however, in this listing. Those not familiar with its ramifications and the byways of the book market, will tend to regard the highest price displayed as that valid for all copies listed. They tend to disregard faults honestly mentioned in many descriptions, although these ring like a loud alarm bell and sound a serious 'caveat' to anybody familiar with books. As in the story of the houses above, two or more books which appear to be identical are really not the same when it comes to their value. DJ McAdam quotes an instance where an internet site offered a particular paperback for $232.95. Not long after the person wanting it found a copy in a bookstore for $3.23.

To illustrate the point, I have taken a sample for one particular title listed on the internet. The data comes from the file as it appeared on 9 October 2003 (the date is important, for this changes every day, even from minute to minute). It is designed as a sale listing, hence books come and books go. What was there yesterday may be sold by today, and what was absent today, may appear tomorrow. But here is the result: I have selected Studies in the psychology of sex by Havelock Ellis for several reasons. One is that the book's intellectual content is significant shown by the fact that since its appearance in the early 1900s it has been continuously in print in one form or another and it seems is still being used as a university text in the United States. Second is that almost everybody is interested in sex. Proof of that interest - apart from the regular disappearance of almost any book with the word 'sex' in the title from almost all libraries - is the soiled and grubby physical condition of that part of the old card catalogue that used to contain the heading 'sex' as well as the independent report by internet watchers reporting the greatest number of hits around this word, bar none!

The number of entries for this title in the data file is very large. I have taken one edition - or what looks like the same edition - for comparison. The details vary from the very basic ('it is in good condition') to the very detailed, listing the title of each volume and chapter. Early (1915-1950) editions range in price from AUD$7.22 to AUD$77.63 There is one 1906 edition valued at AUD$2188.82, while at the same time a 1901 issue, which seems the same, is offered at AUD$28.45. Of course, there have been innumerable paperback editions of varying completeness which only adds to the universal confusion of the uninitiated, at the same time proving the enduring worth of this title. Even people who know books and the market would find such a display more than confusing and would have to maintain that unless all the copies can be inspected and compared, relying on these so-called 'descriptions' can lead the unwary into very serious errors of judgment. Given this caution, those who regard the highest price as the definitive value for a title must be regarded as either fooling themselves - if their main aim is to come to a reasonable value of their own collection - or are intentionally disregarding for the sake of simplicity the millions of variations existing in the marketplace.

It is a fact of commerce that the value of any item is basically what the marketplace, the buyers, are prepared to pay for it at any given time. It is the height of foolishness - from the commercial point of view - to set a value-price for a book that is so high in comparison with other copies of the same book that no one is prepared to buy it, for they must compete with other very similar books for the buyer with the deepest pocket. The final - and perhaps most important - factor in assessing the book's value lies in what the ANZAAB refer to as 'collectors' interest'. I think I am correct in assuming that when an item's value/price is established, the bookseller setting this value/price quite often has a particular collector or market in mind. In other words, there is a lurking but invisible 'collectors' interest' that determines the price. It is not unusual for a professional book buyer to acquire an entire collection for the sake of one or two specific items, because she or he knows there is a buyer waiting in the wings for them and that the price paid for the entire collection will be recouped by the sale of those specific items. Abhorrent as this may seem to some, the books not wanted are either sold as a job lot or even discarded. This is really not surprising: it is perhaps safe to say that at least eighty per cent of everything published is either ephemeral or plain junk. This applies to publications of today, and to publications of at least the two previous centuries.

Finally, one must distinguish between the various reasons for wanting to obtain the value of a book. It can not be emphasised too strongly that the purpose for which the value of a book is sought, will ultimately decide the final value/price for that item. If the value of a book is needed to give the owner an idea of his worth in money terms, or in order to donate an item or items for the purpose of reducing the tax burden, then although a hypothetical value is sought, the book is not for sale. If, on the other hand, the value has to be determined with the ultimate goal of selling the book, then two possibilities present themselves: the sale is to be to someone who is unlikely to re-sell the item. In this case one may set the current price/value at its maximum, since the question of profit to be gained by re-selling by the buyer does not come into consideration. Or the sale is to someone whose primary purpose is to sell the item and make a profit on the transaction: in such a case the seller will have to accept a lower price, since the re-seller is unlikely to want to acquire the item on which no profit can be made.

And, just to dispel the myth that all antiquarian booksellers know the value of any given book, here is a quote from Ron Barlow's The insider's guide to old books as quoted by McAdam: 'Last month I interviewed a veteran book and paper dealer ... I asked him which price guide he consulted most often. "I just look up at the big blue sky for a moment" he said, "and the right price just pops into my head."'

References

Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA). 'Note on the evaluation of books'. http://www.abaa.org

ANZAAB Membership directory, 2001/2002. Nedlands, 2001.

McAdam, DJ 'Book values - or, How can I tell how much a book is worth?' http://www.djmcadam.com

Van Wingen, Peter. Your old books. 1994. http://www.rbms.nd.edu

Biographical information

Peter Dobrovits has been a librarian for many years. He lectured on the making and history of books at the Sydney Technical College. At the time of his retirement he was deputy university librarian (Technical Services) at the University of New South Wales. Since then he has worked in several libraries on cataloguing rare items, as well as helping to produce catalogues for an antiquarian bookseller.