"W.T.S.W." Part Two

W.T.S.W. What’s This Sucker Worth? A loaded question routinely asked of booksellers.

Last week I raised some and answered other questions about the ways in which books are or can be valued. I noted that the presence of computers, the advent of the Internet, the ease of use of on-line search engines and other factors makes establishing a given book’s value quite easy. At least they should.

“Sold” columns on eBay, digitalized archives of auction records, list-serve discussion group discussions and other resources can establish “value” doably.

So why can book value assessment seem so sinister (or at least mysterious)? Why is one copy of an edition of a Harry Potter title findable all day long at Saint Vinny’s for a buck but another can sell for $431,000 at a Dallas, Texas auction?

Apart from First Edition points of issue (a typo on p. 231, a “1” in the “number” line at the copyright page for most publishers, an “a” in the case of some publishers and a “2” that signifies First Edition for at least three publishers—damn them!), collectable book prices fluctuate for all kinds of additional reasons. There are various markets for a given book, for example.

While some older books bound in hardcover format may end up in the landfill, there is a monetary value in trade paperbacks because of paper pulping companies. Certain text-blocks bound by a special, famous book-binder can add hundreds of not thousands of dollars in value.

Book condition is another critical factor. Has a previous owner mistreated a book by dog-earing its pages, bumping its tips, underlining passages in pen, leaving it in the sun, breaking its spine, or clipping its dust jacket? Is there even a dust jacket? Those printed or illustrated, paper or laminated paper jackets don’t just protect a book from wear, sun and varmints, but also often contain information about the author, the book’s importance and the book’s price and edition. Some have estimated that books published with dust jackets but currently lacking them are worth 50% to 90% less than those still sporting their original protection.

Paper wrappers burst onto the scene in about the 1850s and had become in some cases works of art by the 1920s. Libraries and collectors alike once routinely removed the dust jackets, thinking of them as little more than packaging or marketing devices. But times have changed. The $431,000 British First Edition Harry Potter Book was published first without a dustjacket. The British publisher of the Harry Potter books, Bloomsbury, did finally begin to publish Harry Potter first editions with the dust jacket well into their run, for example, the third printing of Sorcerer’s Stone. A J.K. Rowling-signed 1997 First Edition, Fourth Printing of The Philosopher's Stone with the beautiful dust jacket sold for $12,500 in 2022 online.

So, books and dust jackets belong together, right? Sometimes they are published at the same time, but they wear at different rates, show sunning differently, or become separated. Sometimes First Edition dust jackets cover a cheap reprint or a facsimile dust jacket protects the real deal.

Reach me at: [email protected] or http://www.svafinebooks.com .