How to Price Your Old Books

There are as many ways to price an old book as there are people on the planet. However, listed below are a few tips and tools that I use daily to price older books that come into my store.

Please keep in mind, as with all things, pricing a book can be very subjective, but at the end of the day, a book is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay for it.

Examine the Price History of a Book

The first step in estimating a price for a book is to look at what price the book has sold for in the past. There are a number of different physical and online resources for determining sold prices. It is important to determine the edition (to be added), condition (to be added), and any special attributes (to be added) of your book, to make sure you are accurately able to determine what you have.

Online Resources:

eBay sales history - Any eBay user can view the sales history for a given item up to two years using the “Product Research” tab of eBay’s seller hub. This is often a good place to start in determining the going price of books, particularly the more common ones. Keep in mind, eBay takes 15-20% commission on top of those prices.
Worthpoint - This is a paid subscription service ($26.99/month), though last I checked, they do offer a free trial. This provides sales records from eBay (and other auction companies) from the last 15 years. This can provide a little bit more information, particularly on scarcer titles. However, the further away from the current date, the more factors that will need to be considered (availability, inflation, etc.) and the less accurate that estimate will be.
Rare Book Hub - This is another paid subscription service ($600.00/year, though shorter, temporary charges are available), and is not recommended unless you are a very serious collector or a book dealer. This searches professional auction records over the last 100-150 years, and includes a number of other helpful tools.

Print Resources:

Auction Catalogs
Bookseller Catalogs
Bibliographies & Price Guides

Examine the Availability of Your Book

The next step in estimating a price for a book is to look at what editions of the book are available, both for sale and institutional copies available for researchers.