"Don Phillipson" wrote:

"S. Callow" wrote in message
...

Cleaning out basement and found my deceased father's complete set of a
1954 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Would like to know if
there is any value to these books or not.

Probably not. The last edition of antiquarian value was the 11th of
1910 because the last to publish Victorian scholarly articles unabridged.

Years ago I gave a scholarly paper on the modern (1890) army rifle as
an agent of social change (requiring that soldiers be taught marksmanship
skills as well as obedience, drill etc.) The 11th edition Britannica has
dozens
of pages of material (on chemistry, metallurgy, ballistics, conscription,
etc.)
relevant to that theme 1815-1914. By contrast modern editions probably
have half a column on the rifle with no history at all.

Oh I wish I had a 9th or a "10th" edition (which is the 9th plus
supplements), it's completely different from the 11th. The 9th
is not afraid of scholarly opinions, and not afraid to have lengthy
entries disagreeing with other entries. Modern editions purge
all shades of opinion from all political, philosophical, historical
ambiguity and enforce cover to cover dumbass uniformity.