Wondering how rare/valuable some books are?

Hello,

I am new to this group and I have always read a lot. I have recently
started getting into collecting, buying and selling older books.

I just picked up some books this weekend and I was wondering if any one
could give me some insight into them as collectables.

THE ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE. 3 VOLUMES 1946

The Lady With the Rubies - E. Marlitt - 1898

PLANT DOCTORING IS FUN - Dr. Cynthia Westcott 1957

5 Novels by Richard Harding Davis - Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909
1. The Kings Jackal
2. Ranson's Folly
3. Captain Macklin
4. Gallegher
5. Soldiers of Fortune

BOSTON NEIGHBOURS, IN TOWN AND OUT by Agnes Blake Poor
New York & London G. P. Putnam's Sons 1898

The Colonial Twins of Virginia by Lucy Fitch Perkins
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924

Hello,

I am new to this group and I have always read a lot. I have recently
started getting into collecting, buying and selling older books.

I just picked up some books this weekend and I was wondering if any one
could give me some insight into them as collectables.

Can't speak to your books in particular. You can look them up
yourself on ABEBooks:

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/

In general, only first editions are of significant monetary value
to collectors. Sometimes other factors will make a book rare, such
as the author's signature, or a mistake in printing. If a book is
very old, that may increase it's value. None of your books is old.
For a book to be called old, it has to have been printed at least
200 years ago. Anything printed in the 19th century isn't old.
I've only got a few old books in my collection. One was published
some years before the American Revolution, but that isn't really
old for a book. I would guess that your books are worth very
little, but check them out anyway -- sometimes you get a pleasant
surprise.

Al Smith wrote:

In general, only first editions are of significant monetary value
to collectors. Sometimes other factors will make a book rare, such
as the author's signature, or a mistake in printing.

True, but books can be rare without being valuable.

A mistake in the printing of a first edition is called an "issue
point". In a case where, for example, the first copies of a collectible
edition had the mistake and then the mistake was noticed and corrected
in later copies, the copies with the mistake will have a higher value
than those without. A mistake in the printing of a later edition will
almost certainly reduce the value of the book.

If a book is very old, that may increase it's value. [snip] For a book to
be called old, it has to have been printed at least 200 years ago.

Strictly speaking, any book which isn't new can be called old. Books
more than about 200 years old are described as "antiquarian".

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

wrote:
Hello,

I am new to this group and I have always read a lot. I have recently
started getting into collecting, buying and selling older books.

I just picked up some books this weekend and I was wondering if any one
could give me some insight into them as collectables.

THE ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE. 3 VOLUMES 1946

The Lady With the Rubies - E. Marlitt - 1898

PLANT DOCTORING IS FUN - Dr. Cynthia Westcott 1957

5 Novels by Richard Harding Davis - Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909
1. The Kings Jackal
2. Ranson's Folly
3. Captain Macklin
4. Gallegher
5. Soldiers of Fortune

BOSTON NEIGHBOURS, IN TOWN AND OUT by Agnes Blake Poor
New York & London G. P. Putnam's Sons 1898

The Colonial Twins of Virginia by Lucy Fitch Perkins
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924


Hi,

I second the comments of the others. Collecting is work. You have to know the
tools available and spend some time studying. Some useful sites are
www.abbookman.com , trussel.com , http://collectingbooks.about.com .

Let's take just one of your titles: Richard Harding Davis, The King's Jackal.
Doing a search on used.adall.com , specifying "first edition" we get about 135
entries. The earliest date mentioned is 1898, and it can be reasonably certain
that that was therefore the first year of publication. But that does not tell
us if it is a first edition. Some dealers say they have a first edition, but do
not. They may be careless or reckless in their statements. Others provide good
background information so that a careful reader can evaluate that and other
listings. Take the following listing that appears among the 135:

"New York: Charles Scribner"s Sons, 1898. Hardcover DAVIS, Richard Harding. THE
KING"S JACKAL [A Novel]. With Illustrations by C. D. Gibson. 12mo, yellow cloth,
pp. vi, 176 (followed by eight pages of ads), illustrated. Variant state of the
book, not noted by BAL, with five titles listed on page ii, all of which were
published prior to 1898. Owner"s ink name on front pastedown, binding and
endpapers lightly foxed, frontispiece sprung, else a very good copy in pictorial
dust jacket. The scarce jacket has started to split between front panel and
spine (tape mended on verso), lacking two-inch piece from lower spine, with
shallow chip at crown of spine, else complete; quite fresh and clean. First
edition, unrecorded? state with five titles listed on page ii [BAL 4528, states:
"Two states notes: 1: No advertisements on p. ii; 2: List of four titles, p.
ii"]. [Hadley, MA, U.S.A.] "

The color of the cloth - yellow - is mentioned. Sometimes, especially in the
19th century, publishers ran different print runs in different colors. Then the
number of pages (vi + 176 + 8 pages of ads) is given. This is important to see
if your book has these essential traits. The size is given as 12mo, which means
duodecimo, or a folio sheet folded to make 12 pages. Others describe the book
as 8vo or octavo, which means the same folio page folded to form 8 pages. A
better wasy to describe the book is by actual physical dimensions of height and
width.

At the bottom of the listing, the dealer has referred to the bibliographer's
information which notes two states of the first printing. The reference "BAL"
is to the Bibliography of American Literature. The first state has no
advertisements on page ii and lists 4 titles of Davis on that page. The dealer
believes he may have a variant state with no advertisements on that page but 5
not 4 titles listed. It is always possible that a variant state escaped the
bibliographer, who after all, only can write about the actual copies of the book
he or she has been able to study.

Bibliographers perform a difficult and immensely useful task for collectors.
They study as many copies of a book as they can get their hands on, do all sorts
of research that the average person cannot get access to and tell you all about
the traits of the first printing - and sometimes about those of later printings,
if there is something of interest in the later printing. Example: The later
edition of Stevenson's Treasure Island illustrated by N. C. Wyeth and published
by Scribner's in 1911.

The dealer quoted notes that the binding and endpapers are lightly foxed. You
need to know the terminology. See
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/don/dt/dt1434.html for the definition of foxing
and for many other definitions.

The dealer then mentions that the frontispiece is sprung. The frontispiece is
the illustration opposite the title page. To say it is sprung means that it is
not held in by the binding.

The dealer also notes that the book comes with a dust jacket. For an 1898 book,
this is most unusual and will substantially increase its value. He notes that
the jacket has started to split and has been mended with tape on the back
(verso) side. This is the only way to mend a jacket and if you do it, it should
be with special acid free tape designed for use on books and documents. He also
notes defects in the condition of the jacket - e.g., a 2 inch piece is missing
from the spine of the dust jacket.

Turning to your own copy, you should first look at the copyright page, verso to
the title page, and see what printing information is stated there. Compare this
information to the information on first editions provided in the AB Bookman site
noted above. (I keep a copy of the document in PDF format - about 70 pages. I
also keep a hard copy. This is really useful stuff.)

You give Scribner's and 1909 as the possible printing information. Inserting
that into an addall.com search, I get one result:

"New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. Book is deep red with gold gilt
lettering and design. Cover is soiled, worn, sunned with edgewear. Pages are
browning and soiled. Gutter is cracking. Black and white illustrations
throughout. Onion skin paper in front of book loose from book.. Hard Cover.
Poor/No Jacket. Illus. by Gibson, Charles Dana. 8vo. Charles Scribner\"s Sons US"

Use Etherington to get the definitions of sunned, gutter, etc. The condition
noted is poor. There is no reason in collecting books to buy anything less than
good, a good really means less than good. The price asked for this later
printing in this condition is $6.95. Given the condition, it is probably
overpriced. Even if the condition were not a problem, still as others have
said, later printings do not attract much attention unless the book is truly
rare and even later printings are hard to come by. There are very few books in
that category.


I hope this helps you.


Francis A. Miniter

If a book is very old, that may increase it's value. [snip] For a book to
be called old, it has to have been printed at least 200 years ago.


Strictly speaking, any book which isn't new can be called old. Books
more than about 200 years old are described as "antiquarian".

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com


That's interesting. As you may know from my previous posts, I'm
not a collector, I'm just a person who buys and owns a lot of
books because he likes books. I didn't know there was a specific
term for very old books.

The older book I referred to is 3 3/4" by 6 1/4", full leather
binding, titled "The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification" by "Mr.
Walter Marshal, late Preacher of the Gospel", not a first,
unfortunately, but "The Third Edition, Corrected" and published at
Edingurgh in 1733: "Printed for David Duncan, and sold at his
house near the Foot of the West Bow, and by several Book Sellers
in Town." Price, two shillings -- which isn't much less than what
I paid for it (I picked it up for a few dollars).

I must see if I can find it now on Abe.

Hmmm, it doesn't come up on Abe. Oh well.

I wrote:

Books more than about 200 years old are described as "antiquarian".

Michael Adams commented:

I'd say that probably depends on how the dealer views his business,
his clientele, and possibly, but not necessarily, at what level
he sets his prices. In the days before internet pricing at least.
And whether the book in question is of any special merit in terms
of edition, condition, or whatever. And regardless of its actual age
within limits.

Thus the same 1904 secondhand volume on offer =A320 from one seller, Joe
Bloggs Booksellers, might well be described as an antiquarian book ** by
another seller Joseph Bloggs and and Sons, Antiquarian Booksellers at
=A350.

Traditionally, "antiquarian books are defined as those printed prior to
1800" (http://library.loyno.edu/speccoll/co...evelopment.htm),
but Ahearn defines it as "A loose term implying collectible books
rather than used books. Refers to old, rare, and/or scarce, and usually
to books published before 1900" (Book Collecting).

Personally, I don't rate Ahearn that much; among other affronts to
common decency, they use "mint" as a term for describing the condition
of books, but that is a term which correctly belongs to
stamp-collecting, not to book-collecting at all. So I'd stick with the
traditional definition, by and large, rather than Ahearn and Joseph
Bloggs and Sons.

AFAIAA there never has been generally accepted term* for
"collected books" or "collectible books" per-se, which covers the
whole range between modern firsts, which the collector would wish to
distinguish from "merely" new or merely second-hand on the one
hand, and incunabulae at the other.

There has been extensive discussion in rcb about what constitutes a
"collection", and certainly there has never been a consensus. Some
people felt that any batch of books cobbled together for any reason or
purpose could be called a collection, but most serious collectors felt
that, to qualify as a collection within the terms of reference of
book-collectors as a species, the books had to be classifiable within a
single, specific category (such as "19th century fine bindings", or
"first editions of Charles Dickens in the original cloth", etc.). A few
people felt that even that wasn't enough, and a true collection had to
be exhaustively complete and should preferably include letters,
manuscripts and other related materials that would make it unique.

But surely there is little disagreement about what is meant - within
the trade at least - by "collectible"? Isn't it generally accepted that
a collectible book is worth more than its cover price, if it is a
modern book, or more than a comparable reading copy, if it is an older
book? From the point of view of the market, anything which carries a
premium in terms of price is "collectible".

While on eBay on the other hand ,anything older than 30 years often
qualifies as an "antique book"

Only when being sold by people who are not familiar with the
terminology of book-collecting (of whom, of course, there are many)!

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Al Smith wrote:

The older book I referred to is 3 3/4" by 6 1/4", full leather
binding, titled "The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification" by "Mr.
Walter Marshal, late Preacher of the Gospel", not a first,
unfortunately, but "The Third Edition, Corrected" and published at
Edingurgh in 1733...

Hmmm, it doesn't come up on Abe. Oh well.

That particular edition doesn't come up, but there are three 17th
century editions listed, at prices from around $75-$150, as well as a
collection of Marshal's works, at $350:

http://tinyurl.com/96b7y

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

The older book I referred to is 3 3/4" by 6 1/4", full leather
binding, titled "The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification" by "Mr.
Walter Marshal, late Preacher of the Gospel", not a first,
unfortunately, but "The Third Edition, Corrected" and published at
Edingurgh in 1733...


Hmmm, it doesn't come up on Abe. Oh well.


That particular edition doesn't come up, but there are three 17th
century editions listed, at prices from around $75-$150, as well as a
collection of Marshal's works, at $350:

http://tinyurl.com/96b7y

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com


Jeez, it went to a 9th edition, and then later to a "new" edition.
Who would suspect that such a boring religious tract could be so
popular? Many thanks for locating the later editions. I didn't
even get the author's name to come up.

Looks like I managed to start a good discussion!

Thanks to everyone for their information. This is just the type of
feedback I was hoping for. I look forward to participating in this
group on a regular basis.