What is Book Worth?

One of my mentors, the late Walter Powell, of Powell's Books, used to tell me that a book is worth what you get for it. The price one pays for something does establish a factual value. So, it's not unreasonable to use auction records for the sales of books and all personal property. But auction prices realized can be influenced by forces not at work in the retail environment. The people selling the books might be in tight straights and wanting to sell the books no matter how little they get. The bidders might be a little too giddy on champagne laced with strawberries and not really paying attention to what they are doing when bidding. Even so, auction prices must not be ignored because they are, if nothing else, a good indicator of the general market conditions for the resale of personal property. If, as in this year, the big auction houses report losses on their auctions, that indicates that the buyers are holding onto their money and this can be a definite market indicator and this has to be taken into account during the valuation process.

So, you say that maybe for many items, an appraiser just gives it her/his best guess. Okay- I can cop to that to some extent. I would rather you use the phrase, "opinion of value," because that is more accurate. It reflects that I have done some serious work and weighed heavily a number of factors when pricing a book, manuscript, historic photograph, or map.

The difference between the consequences for an appraiser and a retailer of used/rare books who make incorrect opinions of value are quite different. If the retailer makes a mistake, he has only two consequences: he doesn't make the sale, or he makes the sale but doesn't make as much as he could have. (If he does this enough times, he goes out of business) For an appraiser, the consequences are far more severe. He or she can be sued.

If the appraiser does not show due diligence and do enough, if not more than enough, data collection and market research - or, if the appraiser just "guesses," and then because of these poor appraisal practices, makes a wrong opinion of value, the appraiser's client might lose a lot of money because they might not make a sale, or sell for far too little. Since there is a loss involved for the appraiser's client, the client has every right to sue the appraiser for the loss incurred, and for negligence because the client trusted that appraiser to be accurate. So, simple guessing is not allowed, and poor data gathering and poor market research is likewise not allowed. If you want to be the best you can be as an appraiser.


There's much more I can say on this subject and hope to in the days to come. Let me know if you find this interesting or helpful.