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Want to sell a rare book with a high listing price - What would be a fair price?
Librarian
The face of liberal fascismRegistered User regular
The face of liberal fascismRegistered User regular
So I have had this book for a number of years and I figured it might be best to sell it instead of just keeping it on the shelf.
As you can see, the price for this book is pretty steep. I do have a potential buyer who is interested but also says that the price going online is a bit high. I would be willing to find some middle ground, but have zero experience in reselling rare books and got no idea what would be a fair price for the buyer that also does not make me feel like a chump who sold the book for far less than it is worth.
This is an academic title, so I am aware the potential readership isn't big.
Anyone with bookselling experience who can give me an idea on how to work out a reasonable price?
As you can see, the price for this book is pretty steep. I do have a potential buyer who is interested but also says that the price going online is a bit high. I would be willing to find some middle ground, but have zero experience in reselling rare books and got no idea what would be a fair price for the buyer that also does not make me feel like a chump who sold the book for far less than it is worth.
This is an academic title, so I am aware the potential readership isn't big.
Anyone with bookselling experience who can give me an idea on how to work out a reasonable price?
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https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&an=&tn=attending+daedalus&kn=&isbn=
But if you find someone willing to pay $600 for a physical copy, go ahead
Yea but someone who wants a rare book is probably in it for an actual physical book and not a pdf
Yeah, you absolutely need to get this thing appraised. If you have any universities nearby, look into their library to see if they have a preservation department or someone with conservation training, they'll give you a fairer shake than a book seller. Here's some simple stuff that you can evaluate on your own:
- Is there foxing on the pages (brown stains on the pages and edges, looks a bit like mildew; the way you know it isn't mildew is that it isn't confined to the edges)
- Are the corners weathered (bent inwards, or have some separation of the binding from the boards)
- What kind of condition is the binding in
- Is the spine broken (i.e. does it curve inward into the text block when you open the book)
- What is the overall condition of the print in the text block, and that of any engravings or pictures
- Is there any pest damage present (old books are good eating for a lot of bugs)
Abe is the standard for selling rare books online, so if there's a pricing structure for different grades of book, you can trust it.
Rare books are almost always public domain. People don't buy a rare first edition to read it any more than they buy a last of its kind classic car to drive it to the store or a Carson City quarter to do their laundry.
OP: absolutely do the work to get it graded. If it's a high grade, you'll never get it's true worth without some proof of it, and if it's a mid or low grade, you can still pull it a couple price tiers out of the gutter if it's been graded. A common idea in many collector circles is that if it's not graded or appraised, it's the lowest plausible grade - a buyer would pay you as such and then get it graded themselves, probably upgrading their investment substantially in the process.
Or they might just tell you to go to a seller. It is a mystery.
Doing that research might help with the potential buyer - if you can find listings in similar conditions that sold for a comparable price you can state what you want for it since the online prices do vary considerably (Abe is showing $160 - $1,000 listings, which is a huge variance).
I am an actual librarian, you make it sound as if I could just do an informal appraisal myself.
Delaying to track down a mystery appraiser seems like a bad call here when you already have the min-max threshold of what the book is worth. You aren't selling a Gutenberg Bible, for an under $1k sale I'd probably try to see what you can get from your interested buyer.
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My apologies, I wasn't sure if your username was your job title or not.