How Condition Makes A Book Valuable
The condition of a book is critical to its value. A book that has been recently published and has poorly treated and has tears to its dust jacket or stains on the boards or pages is warped or sunned so badly that the printing of the book has faded all reduce value.
But condition is relative. A book printed over 100 years ago can have some “spots” and even a little ‘warp’ to its boards and still retain 99% of it’s value. A book with these same faults that was printed 3 years ago will not be so easily forgiven by the majority of collectors. Collectors want pristine copies. They will pay a premium for better copies and deduct value from copies that are less than perfect.
A factor of ‘condition’ is whether or not the “dust jacket” or paper cover of a hard cover book is present or not. If the book is a “first edition” and it was originally sold to the public with a dust jacket on it, but the dust jacket is missing then the book is not as “valuable” as it would be with the original dust jacket present. And sometimes the difference in value is dramatic.
To give you an example, some years ago I purchased a first edition of Issac Asimov’s first book, “I Robot” for 50 cents at a local yard sale. The book did not have a dust jacket but was in mint condition. I was only able to sell it for about $110 but… if it had the original dust jacket on it and it was in similar condition as the rest of the book I could have easily sold it for $1,300 or more.
Used books printed after 1900 without a dust jacket are not generally collectible unless they were issued and presented to the public for sale without one in their original state. And that does happen. Publishers will sometimes print and sell books without a dust jacket, but it does not happen very often.
And used books printed with dust jackets before 1900 are usually valuable as well because it is rare that the dust jacket of a book would survive after all these years!
© 2010, Work At Home Covert Opps!. All rights reserved.
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