Auctions 101: Consigning Your Rare Book Collection At Auction

How do you assess your rare book collection and know if it’s right for sale at auction?

At Swann Galleries, we receive many inquiries from folks wondering what to do with shelves and shelves of books. Are they valuable? Maybe! Below, we aim to answer a few of these questions.

Considerations for consigning rare books at auction:

Who put this collection of books together?

Rare Book Collector: The habits of the bibliophile are usually known to friends and family members, especially their spending habits. If the book lover in question routinely paid $1,000-plus per book on the retail market in today’s dollars, the collection likely contains valuable books, and someone in the family already knows.

Scholar: Professional physicians, university professors, authors, artists, librarians, scholars, hobbyists and others surround themselves with books in pursuit of their work. However, books that are rare and valuable to a researcher because of content are not usually the domain of the fine book collector.

Reader: People love books! And many of us retain our prized favorites. It’s easy to build up a collection of beloved titles in literature, children’s books, nonfiction, and other genres. Books fun to read are valued for their content, whereas rare books are valued because of their special qualities, think a perfectly preserved first edition from a Nobel prize winner, signed and in pristine condition. Rare books are going to be the copies that were never read more likely than the well-thumbed favorites.

Someone born generations ago: A collection like this is worth examining. Who knows, maybe they bought Moby Dick when it came out in 1851.

What condition are the books in? In book collecting, as in many other areas of antique and art collecting, condition is paramount. Good condition “for its age” usually means bad condition. Torn and missing pages, intense staining, worming, tears, any fault that makes a book unappealing to you will make the book unappealing to us, and to else anyone looking to buy. Even with the earliest books, we are looking for good condition.

How old is old? For books, old is pretty darn old. 100 years sounds old, but the earliest printed book was produced over 550 years ago. Primacy can be more important, as opposed to just age, when it comes to books. Many books from the 1600s are not worth much at all, while a first edition from the twentieth century can be very valuable.

• Examples include Jean de Mandeville’s Reysen und Wanderschafften durch das Gelobte Land, late eighteenth- early nineteenth- century; Euclid’s Elementa geometria, 1482; Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Cronicarum cum Figuris et Ymaginibus ab Inicio Mundi, 1493; a Book of Hours, circa 1435-45; works by Geoffrey Chaucer; and Sir Philip Sidney’s The Defence of Poesie, 1595.

Are all first editions valuable? Not necessarily. Important first editions are valuable when they are undeniably important landmarks in our culture, the most recognizable works making their earliest appearances in print.

• Examples include first editions of Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, J.R.R. Tolkien, Emily Dickinson, and Herman Melville, as well as works such as Albert Einstein’s Relativity. The Special and General Theory, 1920, and Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle, 1839.

What does copyright mean? A modern book’s copyright date, often found on the back of the title page, is the date the work was first registered with the government copyright office. It is the birth year of the text. The date of publication is different. Henry Melville first published Moby Dick in 1851, but when it was reprinted in 1862, its copyright date is still 1851. Look for the date on the title page to find the year the book was printed. If there’s no date on the title page, it’s likely a later reprint.

Does rare equal valuable? Rarity can convey value to an important book, but a very rare book of little interest will not become valuable because another copy can’t be located. Likewise, printing anomalies and binding errors do not add value to the book, unlike stamp collecting for example.

What qualities do make a book more valuable? Excellent condition, an inscription or signature in the author’s hand, interesting annotations of an important former owner, a special binding, extraordinary illustrations, hand-colored plates, anything that stands out as special can add to the value.

Too many books, too little time?

If you’re still unsure what to do, we’re here to help! Take photos of the shelves and reach out to us by email. If you have a list of titles, send it along. We routinely review submissions from potential consignors. If anything on your shelves looks promising, we will follow up with additional questions for more information. We’re also available for consultation by phone and email with any general enquiries regarding collection management.

Caveats to assessing your rare book collection:

• There is a minimum value threshold at Swann Galleries. Some books may fall below that basic threshold, but we can help you decide whether your books are right for auction at Swann or not.
• Swann Galleries does not perform written appraisals, but we can refer you to qualified appraisers.
• Please bear in mind that these are guidelines only, exceptions are the rule.

Devon Eastland

Senior Specialist, Early Printed Books

(212) 254-4710 ext. 18

deastland@swanngalleries.com