HOW TO VALUE A RARE BOOK THAT IS NOT OBVIOUSLY VALUABLE

so here's another episode where I look at rare books and the rare book market now as you can see of course from my short sleeves and the inappropriate blinding lights for camera in the background there I am in Southern California but I am on my way to New York City for the New York antiquarian book fair next week so I hope everyone will visit me there who possibly can I'm going to be in Booth C6 I hope that's my booth otherwise I'm be looking at somebody else's books and I'll put a link to our catalog uh below so if you want to peruse it for say 12 or 15 hours of your leisure time go ahead the link is there now I also wanted to talk perhaps for a little shorter time on this video maybe seven or eight minutes I'll see if I accomplish that because I certainly can Babble on because I noticed at the 15 minute Mark or so at least when I do those videos about after seven minutes or so people start to Trail off so those people who had nine or 10 hours sleep last night and uh think that they could use a little bit more from my after seeing my videos I'd like to keep you engaged all the way till the end now the topic I am going to talk about on this video is going to be on valuing a rare book now I've talked about that a few times before but people always ask me to make more on that specific and important topic and I've chosen this time a rather sophisticated little book now sophisticated of of course like fine wine and cheese this requires some appreciation of rare books uh so it's not for the total beginner I would say but I don't mean that in a pompous way of course because these the type of things that are not immediately and obviously valuable like if you came across a first edition of The Hobbit that was signed by tolin that everybody is familiar with so these are actually the things you can find at reasonable prices sometimes Rarity and make money on now the thing I'm holding in my hand is the Constitution State of Mississippi printed in Washington In 1832 now what immediately appealed to me and again in that sophisticated sense is its aesthetic value here because this is a wonderful looking little tract it has its original string here it's got a beautiful uh simple border but it has the American Eagle as well and I wasn't particularly familiar uh with the constitution of 1832 in Mississippi but I knew enough and had enough instinct to realize that this little charming and beautiful pamphlet could be rare and certainly if required a more careful examination now one of the things that's very important that I do is I actually read the old books because I'm looking for you know tidbits and information on which I can create an important story and set in its historical context and one of the first things I noticed here was the provision on slaves which is particularly interesting because it actually forbids the importation of slaves into Mississippi In 1832 which is at least to me uh an unusual provision but at the same time it takes that double-edged sword approach and it actually forbids as well their IM mancipation if they're already in the territory so that's quite fascinating another aspect effect of this pamphlet or at least this constitution is that In 1832 they had an elected Judiciary in Mississippi which uh is obviously an important part of our government and somewhat taken for granted today but it was novel for the time in Mississippi was actually one of the first states to have an elected Judiciary and finally the section on Native Americans is quite interesting because of course a large part of Mississippi was reserved for white settlers but they had a sizable population of Native Americans and it actually giv a path forward in the Constitution for American citizenship for the Native Americans see how generous they were in Mississippi uh during that period uh now how do I go about valuing a track like this that I instinctually feel might be valuable well I run right away to rare bookhub tocom which is commonly used database of auction prices which I've talked about before and when you type in Constitution State of Mississippi 18 1932 boom pops up a record right away from a few years ago at Souther bees where they sold a copy for $6,000 emphasizing its Rarity however interestingly that was not this copy that was also a copy printed In 1832 by Peter uh Isler iser in Jackson uh Mississippi and they stated that that was the first edition of the second Mississippi Constitution and immediately I was slightly disappointed well maybe this is a later imprint I'm not sure but when I started examining the printer Andrew Marshall he was actually the first printer in Mississippi so I started to question the priority which one is actually the first true edition of the second important Mississippi Constitution and that's a very intriguing bibliographical question that sometimes cannot even be answered because if you look in bibliographies it's not always clear which tract was printed first but it can be a point of great importance because of course naturally everybody wants the first uh printing of something and that really can uh enhance or detract uh from the value of something uh now I had to delve a little bit deeper into the rare bookhub database and sure enough this is quite a rarity and you don't really find any records until you go back to the 1960s and you find the firm of iot's records in that database which thankfully they have Incorporated because they have very valuable records iot was a leading Americana dealer he originally was a gold miner out west but then I think in about 1907 or so he went back east and really found gold in the rare Book trade and become became one of the leading Americana dealers especially of Western Americana and had an enviable stock of Great American Rarities and I really trust his description I also have a friend Michael Vincent who wrote a wonderful book on the firm of Edward EAD so if you want to go on Amazon and look up Michael Vincent's book on EAD it's a great read and if that shoots to number one bestseller on Amazon especially in the category of uh American book seller uh biographies well then Michael you better thank me and of course you might even be interested in this track so reach out to me now when I examine those Eber records it's very very curious because in in the 1960s he had a copy of this and he stated that it's not even in Owens which is the bibliography of Mississippi imprints and he valued this particular track at $850 which was a lot of money uh in the 1960s and you could have put that into Nvidia long before Nvidia even existed and made a fortune curiously as a point of relative pricing he also had a copy of the very one that sold printed in Jackson that other be sold for $ 6,000 and he valued that at $650 so $200 less than he valued this more valuable imprint at so that's uh quite curious to somebody who's trying to Value things uh in the rare Book trade uh as I said and when I compare the Aesthetics of the two volumes the one at sbe's with this charming volume actually find this one much more pleasing because has the outer wrapper with this beautiful border and American Eagles so I really became excited about this track not only for its content its Rarity but of course as a book seller uh because of its potential price now the question is to whom do I sell something like that that is of course an important part of the art of book selling now naturally when I think about that there are people who are interested in American law that's always a possibility there's secondly institutions in Mississippi and I haven't checked all their Holdings yet that certainly would be interested in an early Mississippi imprint like this of you know considerable uh importance there are people who are interested in you know founding over the Republic uh documents and I think this really makes a case uh for those type of people because again uh it is one of the earliest elected judiciaries but I think at least for me the larger market is going to be in institutions or collectors that are interested in the history and development of slavery uh in America as well as Native American rights because both of those are addressed on an early and fundamental level at least on the state level in this rather unusual 1832 Constitution so as I said this is a rather sophisticated book but it is something that required some research it still requires some additional research but it has a lot of potential uh at least for making money but also scholarly potential historical potential to uh interest you know collectors and libraries so I hope you like this video and I certainly hope uh you will subscribe and as I said I hope you will push Michael's book on the firm of Edward eat number one on Amazon so thank you so much for watching

Channel: Adam Weinberger Rare Book Buyer

Views: 829

Keywords: rare books, pawn stars, value rare book, old books, value books, Adam pawn stars, reid moon, Rebecca pawn stars

Id: 7OAHlWzZl_s

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024