Wondering how rare/valuable some books are?

Hello, I joined recently too, and was hoping to find someone here that
could help me gauge the value of some books. I've done LOTS of research
on the net, and been to all the sights someone advised you to check
out. There is one I've found that actually appraises the value IF you
have all the information it asks for. Some books are not in its
database, and then you're back to square one. Anyway, here is the link
www.pbagalleries.com

Good luck!
Mary

A Smith wrote:

Who would suspect that such a boring religious tract could be so
popular?

From its original publication in 1692, COPAC (http://copac.ac.uk/wzgw)
lists some 40 editions of this work, about half of them published
during the 18th century. It also lists about a dozen 19th century
editions, and half a dozen 20th century editions.

There appears to have been a gap between 1836 and 1873 and another
between 1916 and 1956, when no editions were published, but apart from
that it has been in print almost continuously, and is in print today:

http://www.sovgracepub.com/sgpbooks/1589600630.htm

I found quite a helpful essay on Marshall and his Gospel Mystery he

http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/EbBI/fpm/...r/article3.htm
http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/EbBI/fpm/...r/article3.htm

Many thanks for locating the later editions. I didn't
even get the author's name to come up.

You gave it with one "l" in Marshall. Apparently, it was indeed spelt
like that on the title page of the first edition (and perhaps some
later ones), but normally it has two "l"s.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Many thanks for locating the later editions. I didn't
even get the author's name to come up.


You gave it with one "l" in Marshall. Apparently, it was indeed spelt
like that on the title page of the first edition (and perhaps some
later ones), but normally it has two "l"s.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com


I bet that was the problem. It is indeed spelled with one "l" in
my edition.

Nasty funny. I like it. :-)

But I'm still at a dead end. There are no rare and/or old book
appraisers in PA. Perhaps its a lost art? Or they've all moved to the
west coast........

mbbbh wrote:

But I'm still at a dead end. There are no rare and/or old book
appraisers in PA. Perhaps its a lost art? Or they've all moved to the
west coast........

Appraisal's a bit like beauty and filth and all those kinds of things -
a large chunk of it is in the eye of the beholder.

Over in another thread, someone's asking about a volume of poems by
Tennyson (The Death of Oenone, first trade edition). One seller was
asking $400 for it (though that copy has mysteriously disappeared from
the listing), a few are asking $100 or so, and then the prices slide
down to just $8.99 (very good except for "small tear to front page and
slight foxing"). A copy at $125 has "light foxing to endpapers", but is
"otherwise near fine", and none of the pricier copies is rated higher
than "near-fine", yet there's a copy described as fine listed for under
$15, and another rated as fine by an ABA seller (whose valuation one
can supposedly trust) listed for less than $25.

Within those parameters you could pay what you want for this book.
There is no shortage of copies available, but 19th century poetry just
isn't something very many people want any more. Until and unless that
changes, copies are going to sit there, even fine ones at the price of
a couple of beers, though every so often someone's going to come along
and buy one.

There's a 17th century book I won on eBay for a few hundred dollars a
couple of years ago; the only other copy I've seen listed for sale
since then was priced at $24,000. It's not listed any more, so perhaps
it found a buyer.

If so, that buyer would have had nothing to compare it with, unless he
or she had access to lists of actual sales, and these are getting
harder to obtain even as the informaton highway expands. The internet
tells us what's on offer *now*; it's not very good at telling us what
was on offer a year ago, or five years ago.

So what are these two books worth? What can an appraiser be expected to
say? I'm not saying there are no answers to be had; the remaining
copies of (for example) an early Steinbeck classic are probably in a
fairly well-established pecking order (though even then, expect big
differences between what a respected dealer might ask and what the same
book would fetch on eBay), but many other works are not. The old adage
- that a second- (or third-) hand book is worth no more and no less
than someone is prepared to pay for it has never been truer.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Ok. That was funny.