Sources

If you are a collector or enthusiast, let us help you assess your collection. If you have inherited a library from a book lover, let us help you decide which ones to monetize, keep, or discard. If you are a library receiving donated books, let us help you determine which go into the general sale and which should be sold on-line or to collectors.

Identifying valuable books

You will tell us the parameters—eg any books worth $10 or more. Many valuable books can be instantly spotted. Others—rarer, in poorer condition—require a bit more research. With your permission, we will take photos and get back to you after we have checked.

Books in poor condition may gain great value by being repaired. We can refer you to book binders and others that can restore the books’ condition and value, or we can undertake to do this for you on a commission basis.

Appraisals

Appraisals may be desirable for insurance purposes, wills, and other reasons. Appraisals are often required for collections with numerous rare and antiquarian books. Books & Fields does not specialize in rare and antiquarian books. However, we are linked with knowledgeable rare books dealers, and we will be happy to refer you to them for an appraisal.

In-person visits or remote consultations

If you have more than 300 books to assess, we prefer to visit you. Less than that and we can connect by Zoom. Of course, you may visit the store any time we are open.

Assigning a value

We will share two values with you. The market value for a retail customer, as best we can determine it, will be deduced from on-line listings. The second value is what a dealer would pay for it.

For those interested in the worth of a mass of books and not just individual volumes, we can offer a collection-wide estimate. This will be the price of the valuable individual books joined with a per-box valuation for the mass of the collection based on a standard records box of 10” x 12” x 15”.  

Working in your best interest

We will show you the on-line basis of our estimates for the higher value books, and explain how book pricing works for larger collections. You are welcome of course to ask for a second opinion by other dealers. 

The valuation may be to help you to prepare to sell your books. To avoid conflict of interest, you may ask B&F to not bid on the collection, and we will agree. But if you trust us sufficiently we then hope you would entertain our bid, which we believe will be fair to you.