In a report about a recent sale of an 1866 edition of Thoreau’s WALDEN, I saw that the book sold for $100 at the Newburyport Public Library silent auction. The article is really about expansion/construction plans for the library, but the mention of that book at that price seemed unbelievable to me.
Then here in an earlier report (September 17) from the same journal (Amesbury News Town Online) I see a description of items for sale, including the exceedingly rare book, as the silent auction was in the planning stages.
Am I crazy, or is $100 the value of that book? Shouldn’t the library have asked (and received) several thousand (or more) for it? Maybe this is part of the reason so many libraries are struggling…a lack of accurate information regarding the value of rare books on today’s market.
Your comments and expert advice are appreciated.
$100 not too bad
Barring its being an association copy (i.e. from the library of someone significant with their signature/book plate/annotations), $100 is a bit low but not awful for an 1866 ed. of _Walden_.
It’s the 1854 1st ed. (in any of its various states) that would have been a real steal at
that price – copies currently being offered
via abebooks.com (a pretty good barometer of
what the market will bear for any particular
book in my opinion) currently run $10-40,000.
Alibris
This is what Alibris has.
Re:Alibris
Sorry, above link didn’t work — try this similar edition priced at close to $400.00