Old Books, New Books

More Black Oak
A couple of days ago, I mentioned that Black Oak Books was for sale. An article about the store ran today in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Your Old Books (Probably Aren't Worth Anything)
People are endlessly optimistic that their old books must be valuable. A week rarely goes by when I am not asked about this or that old book. Every once and a while something interesting turns up. A seventeenth century alchemy book annotated by an alchemist. A first editon of The Hobbit. An inscribed Richard Avedon. Some good fine press books. In short, about one book a year.

Librarians regularly get asked about book prices and the Rare Books and Manuscripts section (RBMS) of the American Library Association came up with a standard answer about two decades ago, publishing a pamphlet called "Your Old Books." The lastest revision just hit the web. It's a very useful reference.

As proof that most general used books don't end up being worth very much (in monetary terms), I'll offer this example I saw on AbeBooks' blog. A regional British auction house has managed to drum up quite a bit of interest in a sale of a 50-year collection of books on Africa. The auctioneer's estimate is £10,000 (of which the seller will get something like £8,000). Sounds pretty impressive, but this is a 3,000-book library (beginning with lot 46) on a specialized subject, and it's only expected to yeild less than £3 per book (about $5), which is less than the books cost originally.

I don't want to sound critical - if I had more time, I'd work on the tone of this post. I think it's great for people to build private libraries and to spend time reading and learning. Just don't expect to make money at it. At my house, we have thousands of books. A few hundred are in my collection, the rest we read, use for reference, and enjoy. My wife and I went to the movies last night. It cost us $25 for two hours. Spending the same on a book I'll have my entire life is a good deal and just as I have no expectation that my movie-going experience will contribute to the bottom line, I don't consider my working library of books an investment.

Comments

[Bogdan Nemes]

You are right.
I also have thousands of books , i think over 25 000, but the important ones are in a number of about 6000. I have 6 incunabulas, and i know their price is high.

I don't know about other countries, but in my country (Romania) the librarians tend to fool people that don't know about the value of the books. Those are especially old people, and they buy good books for almost nothing, resell them for huge prices!

I also think i could have bought an expensive car and all the useless gadgets with the money i'm spending on books every month, but in any term, that's a waste and it's environmently not friendly. I love this plnet, and i love books, so i would ask for anyone to buy used books, not new ones, with shiny covers.

Nemes Bogdan
www.antiqbooks2000.blogspot.com