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Fadedgiant Guide To Antique Book Values.

2/7/2008

About the Fadedgiant old book value guide

About retail antique book values

How important is condition to the value of old books?

Are all old books valuable?

Fadedgiant: Our mission is to provide you with free tools necessary to complete your own collectible book appraisals.  The Fadedgiant old book price database, the heart of this site, is a concise and easy to use searchable source of auction market values for old, collectible, and out-of-print books. There are over 45,000 collectible and antique book prices in the database, and it is still growing.

This guide is designed to be concise and easy to use. Therein lies its major limitation: Book condition information provided here is limited and may be incomplete. Since book condition is a crucial factor in the value of old books, we recommend that the Faded Giant Price Guide be used as merely an indicator of the approximate market range of an old book’s value. Do not be surprised to find a wide range of sales prices for books that appear to be almost identical in state and condition. This is not an exact science. Don't think in terms of a single, specific value for old books, but think in terms of a value range.

The book database consists primarily of hardcover, modern first editions valued at $20 or more. However, the Fadedgiant book price guide is being updated daily, and the number of rare and collectible books is steadily increasing. Generally, price listings for collectible books worth less than $20 will not be found here.  Over time, we intend to add more popular collectible books that commonly sell for less than $20 such as: Little Golden Books, Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Landmark Books, collectible paperbacks, and others.

About Fadedgiant old book values - Antique book values presented here are based upon online auction prices. They are market-driven values; the price that your old book would bring if sold at auction on E-bay or Yahoo Auctions, not the value that a bookseller may unknowingly inflate at a retail antique or collectible book site or bookstore. Fadedgiant book values do not take into consideration any family history links (such as in the case of an old family Bible) that might increase a book's value for insurance appraisal purposes.

Rare books with highly inflated retail prices may never sell if priced far above the true market value.

Retail antique book values - For information that can be used to estimate a rare book's retail value we recommend consulting Abebooks.com which is one of several sites where retail book sellers can list their books. In general, the prices that you will find for antique books sold on Abebooks.com will be higher than the values for identical books found in the Faded giant price guide. Online book auction sales prices tend to be lower than retail prices. Still, Abebooks and other online book sales sites can prove be a valuable resource for researching and learning about rare books and their values. Old book price guides for sale online and elsewhere can also be of great help in determining the value of a book, but typically provide retail prices which are based upon the experience of the author(s).

Are all old books valuable? - Some things to keep in mind about the value of your old books. Just because a book is old or rare, does not mean that it is valuable. A majority of old books are sold by the pound as scrap paper. What makes a book valuable? There are two basic market drivers that help dictate the value of a book (and most collectibles), they are supply and demand. A book found in abundance with little desirability to collectors will normally be worth less than a book that is scarce and in high demand. The demand for less common and more desirable books drives the price up. Authors and books that are currently in high demand and are realizing record prices at auction include: J R R Tolkien and his Lord of The Rings books, J D Salinger, James Joyce, Ayn Rand, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ken Kesey, J K Rowling and the Harry Potter Books, Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew books, Stephen King, Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and F Scott Fitzgerald.

What TYPES of books can generally (but not necessarily) be expected to have a higher value? Signed limited editions, oversize books with large illustrations by famous illustrators, and privately printed, high quality editions that were released in small numbers. The popularity of book-based movies also affects the price of those books upon which those movies were based. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books by J R R Tolkien, and the Harry Potter books by J K Rowling are currently realizing record prices in the auction market due to the popularity of the movies based upon the books. Although investment quality books will continue to appreciate over the long term, the sharp increases in the prices of such movie-related books are likely to be only temporary spikes and prices for these books should be expected to decrease somewhat as interest in the movies wane.

On the value of old Bibles. Since Gutenberg printed his first bible in 1455, there have literally been millions and millions of Bibles printed. No other book has been printed more often. Because of the religious importance of the book, a relatively small percentage have ever been thrown away or destroyed intentionally. This has resulted in an abundance of old Bibles available on the book market. Most Bibles, even if printed in the 1800s, are not in great demand and have very little monetary value. The earliest printed editions and several unique Bibles from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, do have considerable monetary value. Bibles that are large and/or ornate are also collected for their display qualities. Some Bibles that are illustrated by popular illustrators (such as Gustave Dore) also have some collectible value. Those Bibles that document family history or have been passed down generation to generation have sentimental value to those within that family, but placing a monetary value on such irreplaceable books for insurance purposes can be a challenge. If you own an old Bible that was given to you or inherited from a relative, we recommend that you treasure it for its qualities as an heirloom.

How important is condition in the value of a rare book? - When determining a rare book's value, condition is everything. If you need to become familiar with book condition grading terms, you might want to browse our glossary. The grading terms that we use here are pretty standard. Keep in mind when grading your books, that condition is extremely important in the value of a rare book. Don't throw those torn dust jackets away! Even if it might be somewhat unsightly and torn, your book is worth more with the dust jacket than without. If the jacket is in good condition, the value of your collectible book could be substantially higher. In the case of some books, the dustjacket is worth more than the book itself!

How much will a dealer pay for my old books? - If part of the reason that you are here is to determine how much a book dealer might offer for your old books, do not be offended if you are offered considerably less than the book values in the Fadedgiant database; It is customary for book sellers to offer only 10% to 50% of a book's value to a lay seller.

e-Bay auction antique book selling tips - Interested in a few secrets about how to sell on e-Bay and make your collectible book auctions more profitable? Check out our e-Bay book selling tips page. We discuss photographs, keywords and e-Bay auction listing descriptions, feedback, guarantees, international auctions and more.

Please feel free to contact us with your questions or any recommendations on how to make this site better. We certainly don’t have all the answers and we want to serve you better.