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Trillium Antiquarian Books Some common memento is better,
Something he prized and is known by;
His old clothes-- a few books perhaps.
William Carlos Williams, Tract
Welcome to the home of Trillium Antiquarian Books where you can search or browse our collections of antiquarian books on Country Life and Natural History -- scarce books, from A to Z, on angling, animals, apiculture, bees, birds, botany, Darwin, farming, fish, flora, fruit growing, gardens, geography, grapes, herbals, horticulture, landscapes, mammals, orchards, ornithology, seeds, vegetables, wildflowers, zoology... and likely several other matters which do not come readily to mind.
Search and browse, too, our antiquarian Canadiana and Literature collections. In our Canadiana collection you will find the early works of Moodie, Traill, Davies, Bouchette, and others from Upper and Lower Canada. Our antiquarian Literature collection makes room among its novels, sermons, and poetry for some rare works by Mark Twain and Stephen Crane.
Sometimes all that's left of an old book is the pictures. You will find antiquarian prints and maps, together with entire illustrated books, in Trillium's collection of Images from antiquarian sources.
If you spend any time hunting up books, you are bound to come upon an occasional book so odd or idiosyncratic as to be irresistible. Proof of the proposition is to be found in the Trillium collection of intriguing Curiosities. Since their comings and goings are unpredictable, it's usually worth stopping in for a short browse.
Trillium Antiquarian Books has been selling scarce, out-of-print books on the Internet since 1998 and, earlier, by traditional mail order. Look for us at book fairs in Ontario and the American northeast, where we have exhibited during the past ten years or so. We are always interested in buying antiquarian books in our areas of interest, whether single volumes or complete collections.
Trillium Antiquarian Books is owned by William Van Nest, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. Trillium Grandiflorum, from which we take our name, is the provincial flower of Ontario and appears in snowy white drifts among the hardwoods each Spring. One of several trilliums resident in the back garden furnished the images on this page. |
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Remarks & Notices
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How Much Is My Book Worth?
Towards the end of last year someone wrote with an inquiry about a bird book they owned and were thinking of selling. Their main question was, ‘How much should I ask for it?’ As more and more books are offered for sale on the internet’s open market, the question has become more interesting and the answers more diffuse. Here, in reply, is a foray into the subject-- not the final word, but a start. The book in question is The Birds of Canada by W. Earl Godfrey.
To set an asking price for your book you need to consider:
Its place in the book market. Godfrey's book, in any edition, is a reference book. A birder owns field guides (which are portable) and reference books (which are not)-- both sorts of bird book are used rather than collected. Collected bird books always feature old, original and extraordinary illustrative plates (Audubon's Birds of America is the best and most expensive example) and are always at least scarce. (Because collecting, gathering, and hoarding are difficult to separate in the field, this statement about scarcity can withstand any number of counterexamples).
The book's condition. You need to examine your copy carefully. Put yourself in a buyer's place-- and a systematic, picky buyer at that. Godfrey comes with a dust jacket and these are often the first to show wear and are often missing. Is the jacket in a protective plastic cover? Examine the book's covers for damage and wear, are the hinges tight, loose, broken? Is the text block clean? A buyer is going to see any damage; you might as well tell them first. Details are important.
Availability. How many copies are currently offered for sale? Are they readily available to a buyer? And at what price? In the case of Godfrey's book, I can find somewhat more than 100 copies in either edition offered for sale, live or on-line. A bookseller in downtown Peterborough about 2 kms from here has two copies for sale, but you can also buy a copy from someone in California.
Special features. Most often a particular copy is said to be special and therefore worth more than a comparable ordinary copy because it is signed by the author or illustrator, or because of some special association, e.g., it is from the library
of a noted person. A signature alone does not render a book especially valuable unless the book is also collectable in its ordinary state. In the case of a signed, common reference book such as Godfrey's, the most his signature means
is that the copy is somewhat more interesting than others-- it might make a better gift than an unsigned copy. I can buy a signed copy with some damage for 50.00 USD today.
How you plan to sell your book. Generally speaking, a bricks and mortar bookstore can offer to buy a book from you for a third of its expected retail (which sometimes is arrived at through an intuitive procedure). The rational formula, I am reliably told, is one third for the book, one third for overhead, one third for the bookseller. Internet sellers evidently resort to a variety of pricing techniques, ranging from the technical to the spiritual. The prices of the hundred or so copies currently for sale on-line range from about 150.00 USD on down. Studies suggest the higher the price, the longer the book has been listed.
How fast do you want to sell it and why? How much time and trouble are you prepared to spend to get it sold? Ordinarily, the price of a copy on a card table full of stuff at a flea market will be different (presumably lower) from the price in a booth at the Boston Book Fair.
So, I guess it depends. If it were up to me, I would expect a premium for Godfrey's signature on either of the two Fine copies I have for sale-- probably $75 for a signed copy, but I would also be prepared to make a price to get the book sold.
William Van Nest
January 2010
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