Mansfield Library Subject Guides
Finding Out-Of-Print Books And Determining Their Value
For more information, contact: Jordan Goffin, Special Collections Librarian, 406.243.4036
Out-of-print means that a book can no longer be purchased from its original publisher. 99 percent of all the books ever printed are out-of-print. You most likely want information about out-of-print (O.P.) books for one of two reasons:
- 1: You want to buy a particular book
- 2: You want to find the value of a book you already own.
If you are trying to value your own copy of a book, it is extremely important that you understand why some books that seem very similar can have enormously different prices.
Why Some Books Are Worth So Much More Than Others
A: Many old books are not worth very much money. They're only valuable if somebody wants to buy them. Collectors are only interested in certain books. If your book is a later printing, if it is not in very good condition, or if it's on a subject (or by an author) almost nobody is interested in, then probably very few people will want to pay you much for it. If copies exactly like yours are common, they'll be worth a lot less money than if they're rare. Also remember that a 100-year-old book is not really "old." Many books published over 200 years ago in Europe are worth less than $100.
B: The value of one edition of a book will have very little to do with the value of another edition, or even a different printing, of the same title. Most often, the first printing of the first edition will be worth much more than even a second, identical-looking printing-- but there are exceptions! To decide if a book is a "1st ed." see Patricia and Allen Ahearn’s Collected Books: The Guide to Values (3rd Floor Ref.: 002.075 A285c). You can also try Glenn Larsen's online guide. One copy of the first printing of the first edition of a particular title can be worth over ten times as much as another copy, if the first copy is as new in dust jacket, with an inscription by the author, and the second copy is a worn ex-library book with a bad binding. Taking away the dust jacket can remove 2/3 or more—sometimes up to 90 percent—of the value! In November 2006, signed first edition copies of Stephen King's 1974 novel Carrie were offered for up to $5,000, because it's the author's first book, and is uncommon. An unsigned book club edition of the same book, published at the same time, looking almost identical, might sell for as little as $5.
C: Condition is everything! Serious book collectors frequently don't ever actually read the books they buy to form part of their collection. If they want to read one of their rare books, they might buy a cheap reprint just to read—and never open their valuable first edition! Collectors want books that look absolutely new, even if they are 150 years old. Copies that are damaged or worn (especially of books published within the last hundred years) are worth much less.
D: The prices for which a given bookstore tries to sell a given copy of a given book (which are the prices you find in the various O.P. sources) are much more—usually at least twice as much as—the prices at which that same bookstore will buy an equal copy. For example, a dealer selling a book for $50 might only pay $25 to buy your copy. Other dealers might pay more, or less—or might not be interested in the book at all.
E: Most used book dealers specialize. If you want to sell your book for the best price, you sell it to a dealer who specializes in the same kind of book. A good source to use to find specialist dealers is: Ethridge & Ethridge. Antiquarian, specialty & used book sellers 2nd ed. 1997-98 (3rd Floor Ref.: 070.5025 A633 1997-98).
You can also look online to find many of the dealers listed in Ethridge. Whether you want to buy or sell books, a search of various online book search services should probably be your first step. The best way to find out what a book is worth today is to find another identical copy that's for sale, at a reasonable price for that copy. But if you’re using online prices as a guide to what a book might be worth, you should also note that the prices different dealers ask for the same book can vary greatly. If you see two identical books, one priced at $10, and the other priced at $100, you can assume that your copy is probably not worth too much more than $10. For more information about what makes a book valuable and collectible, see the RBMS publication “Your Old Books,” available online.
Online Sources of O.P. Books and Book Prices
An up-to-date directory of major vendors of rare and antiquarian book vendors is maintained by AcqWeb. There are hundreds of other bookstores with websites. Mostly, you don't want to bother with these websites. The typical bookseller has only a few thousand items on line, and unless they specialize in exactly what you're looking for, they probably don't have your item. One major exception is Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. This single business has over a million books for sale all the time. But you will do even better with a search engine that collects listing from a large number of booksellers, and indexes all of them.
Here are two of the largest such search engines:
- Advanced Book Exchange (or ABE): http://www.abebooks.com/
- Alibris: http://www.alibris.com/
NOTE: These search engines often charge a fee to the booksellers whose books they offer, and that fee is usually passed on to you when you buy one of their books. So you can sometimes save money by finding a book through ABE or Alibris and then going directly to the bookseller’s website to purchase the book.
Or, visit the BookFinder website to search dozens of different websites (including ABE, Alibris, Powell's, and Amazon) at once in a single search! The basic search screen on BookFinder lets you search by author and title, and limit your searches by whether you want new or used books, first editions, and/or books signed by their authors. The advanced search screen adds a number of other options, including desired price range and binding. Results are returned as lists of copies, sorted by price. Click on a particular copy and you get order information. In many cases, if you have a credit card you can order the book right off the website.
BookFinder is not a replacement for the search engines it indexes, especially for the person looking for one particular edition of a book. It lacks searches that some of the other search engines have, such as searches by publisher. The other search engines also allow you to limit searches in different ways, and their websites may get the answers back to you a little faster.
If you can't find what you want with BookFinder try Severs' site. This includes links to all the addresses mentioned above, and to many more, and there is a common search interface that inputs search data into nearly all O.P. search engines at once—author's first name, last name, title, or keyword. Or you can search them all one at a time, right from that page. There's also much other information about books and book collecting here.
Print Sources of O.P. Information
The various books and serials used to locate O.P. books are still useful for determining prices of items which are not currently available for sale, or for tracking the trend of prices for an author or a genre over time. For instance, if there's no currently available copy of "Flower Fables" in any of the online search engines, but a copy was sold last year, that gives a pretty good idea of what a similar copy would be worth now. If the last sale had been 10 years ago, you would need to look at price trends for the author's other works, or other similar books.
Four cumulating or regularly published sources of book prices in the Mansfield Library are:
- American Book Prices Current: 4th Floor: 018.3 A512
- Book Auction Records: 4th Floor: 018.3 B75
- Mandeville's Used Book Price Guide: 3rd Floor Ref.: 018.4 U84
- 1998 Old Book Value Guide: 3rd Floor Ref.: 017.8 H986
For information on the value of selected collectable books, and for information on book collecting, see the following books in the Mansfield Library:
- Nicholas Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: 4th Floor: 002.075 B297
- Patricia and Allen Ahearn, Book Collecting: A Comprehensive Guide: 3rd Floor Ref: 002.075 A285b 1995
- Joseph LeFontaine, Handbook for Booklovers: 3rd Floor Ref: 002.075 L494h
- John Carter, ABC for Book Collectors: 4th Floor: 010.3 C323a 1992
If you have further questions, the Special Collections Librarian, Jordan Goffin, may be able to help you. You can reach him by phone at 406.243.4036 or by email at jordan.goffin@umontana.edu.
Created by Christopher G. Mullin
Last revised 26 Dec. 2006.