Old and rare book value checker
Upload the cover, spine and copyright page. The estimator identifies the title, author and edition clues, notes dust jacket and condition, and estimates what it sells for.
Example estimate
Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera
$190
Usually sells for $120 – $320
Your result appears here.
How to photograph it
Good photos are the biggest single improvement to an estimate. These are the shots that matter most.
- Photograph the front cover, the spine and the dust jacket if present.
- Shoot the title page and the copyright page clearly.
- Photograph any signatures, inscriptions or bookplates.
- Note damage like foxing, water stains or loose pages in the details box.
What decides the price
- Edition and printing
- True first editions, first printings, are worth far more than later printings or book-club editions.
- Dust jacket
- For many 20th-century firsts, the original dust jacket is most of the value.
- Signatures
- Author signatures and notable provenance add premium when authentic.
- Condition
- Clean, tight copies sell best. Ex-library stamps and heavy wear lower value sharply.
What this market actually looks like
Old books and valuable books are almost unrelated categories, and this is the hardest thing to accept about the trade. Nineteenth-century theology, encyclopaedias, bibles and reprinted classics exist in enormous numbers and are close to unsellable, while a modern novel published forty years ago in a small first printing can be worth a great deal. Scarcity and demand, not age, make the price.
Modern first editions are where much of the active money is. The first printing of a book that later became famous was usually produced in a small run before anyone knew, and collectors pay accordingly. Identifying a true first requires reading the copyright page rather than the cover, because later printings of the same edition look identical on a shelf.
The dust jacket often carries most of the value on a twentieth-century book, which surprises people who have thrown them away. For some collected titles the jacket accounts for the large majority of the price, and a jacketless copy of an otherwise valuable first printing can be worth a small fraction of a jacketed one.
Signatures help only when they can be trusted and when the author's signature is scarce. A flat-signed first edition by a collected author adds real money; an inscription to a named stranger adds less; an unverifiable signature on a common book adds nothing and sometimes raises doubts. Association copies, inscribed to someone connected to the book, are the exception that can outrun everything else.
How condition is judged here
- Read the copyright page
- Publishers indicate printings differently: a number line, a stated 'First Edition', or a date matching the title page. Learn the convention for that publisher before concluding anything.
- Jacket condition, separately stated
- Books are described with two grades, book and jacket. Chips, closed tears, price-clipping and fading to the spine all belong to the jacket and are listed individually.
- Previous ownership marks
- Names, inscriptions, bookplates and especially library stamps reduce value substantially. Ex-library copies of collectable books are a separate and much cheaper category.
- Binding and block integrity
- A cracked hinge, a shaken block where the pages move independently of the covers, and foxing to the page edges are the structural faults that matter most to buyers.
What costs people money
Most of the value lost in this category is lost before the item is listed, by the owner, with good intentions. These are the four that come up most often.
- Discarding the dust jacket
- On modern collectable books the jacket is frequently most of the value. Even a damaged one is worth keeping with the book.
- Repairing with tape
- Adhesive tape yellows, stains the paper and is treated as permanent damage. Conservation of a valuable book is specialist work or no work.
- Assuming leather means valuable
- Decorative leather sets were produced in quantity for furnishing rather than reading, and they sell for very little.
- Shelving in sunlight
- Spine fade is the most common avoidable damage to collectable books and it happens within a single summer on a bright shelf.
When to bring in a professional
An antiquarian bookseller is worth consulting for anything that might be a true first of a collected author, for signed material, and for pre-1800 books where condition conventions are different and a non-specialist can easily misjudge. For a general library, the realistic outcome is that a dealer takes the lot, and the useful preparation is pulling out modern firsts with their jackets before that conversation. Authentication of a signature is worth paying for only when the signature is the main part of the value.
Price guides
Common questions
How do I know if my book is a first edition?
Look at the copyright page for 'First Edition' wording or a number line ending in 1. Publishers differ, so give the publisher and wording in the details box.
Are old Bibles and encyclopedias valuable?
Usually not. They were produced in large numbers and are mostly worth little unless very early or historically significant.
What is a book club edition?
A cheaper edition sold through book clubs, often without a price on the jacket flap and slightly smaller. They are worth much less than trade firsts.