BOOK TIPS, HISTORY & ARTICLES
The Blog
Guide to Book Condition: How Condition Affects a Book’s Value
It's (almost) all about condition. As with all items in the world of antiques, the condition of an old or antique book greatly determines how valuable it is. When antiquarian book collectors choose...
Best Way to Effortlessly Auction Rare Books in Phoenix? Try Our Virtual Auction House
As a family-run small business, we love being able to help our community deal with items that they’re ready to sell for one reason or another. Our family has had experience in the local Phoenix antique business for over 40 years.
How to Consolidate a Book Collection: Quarantine Spring Cleaning Tips
Some of the most common items discovered in home-bound treasure hunts tend to be books. Some may be valuable books, most probably are not.
Lost on Titanic: The Legendary Jeweled Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Somewhere, on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, lies one of the most desirable rare books in the world.
Antique Gambling Books & Card Cheating
Gambling has been part of America's history from the nation’s infancy, going all the way back to colonial times. Even before the first European settlers arrived in North America, native tribes had...
Bound to Please: Book Collecting and Fine Bindings
People collect books for so many different reasons; some focus on a particular subject, others collect an entire literary genre; others covet only the earliest of works or...
The #1 Reason Why Many Antique Book Collectors Sell Their Libraries, and How to Sell Yours
"My wife wants her living room back." It might sound funny, but you’d laugh at the overwhelming number of clients we’ve talked to who have decided to auction their antique book collections because,...
How to Identify a First Edition Book – It’s Not So Easy!
Why are first edition books valuable? Often, determining the value of antique books or modern collectible books requires knowing whether the book is a first edition. A first edition is considered to...
Is My Old Bible Worth Money? A Guide to Antique Bibles (Updated 2020)
Tips on finding the value of antique Bibles "How much is my old Bible worth?" We get this question a lot about antique Bibles, and though the answer isn’t in black and white, the bottom line is that...
Estate Liquidation & Downsizing: The 2020 Guide for Evaluating Books or Home Libraries
How to Handle Book Collections or Home Libraries Say you’ve walked into an estate liquidation situation, ready to evaluate and catalog the properties when you come upon a collection of old books -...
Miniature Antique Books: A Quick Introduction to a Tiny Subject
Novelty Items are Collector's Items Today At first glance, you might think an antique miniature book is something made for children, or perhaps a tiny dollhouse miniature. In fact, miniature antique...
Susanna Rowson, Early American Literature’s Forgotten Female Author
Read between the lines to discover feminism in its infancy Once upon a time, a character named Charlotte Temple was wildly embraced by newly independent early American readers, hungry for romance...
Zelda Fitzgerald’s Gal-Pal Meets an 18th Century Dutch Atlas
"Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children's party taken over by the elders." - F. Scott Fitzgerald Jazz Age revels would do well to...
Harry Houdini’s Massive Magic and Spiritualism Library Lives On Today
Houdini’s personal collection of rare antique books on magic, witchcraft, psychic phenomena and spiritualism still exists in the U.S. Library of Congress.
“Tamerlane”, the World’s Rarest (and Most Valuable) Edgar Allan Poe Book
Just 50 copies of Poe’s “Tamerlane and Other Poems” were self-published by the author in 1827. Only 12 are known to exist today, one selling for over $600k.
How to Find the Value of Antique Books: Why Online Prices Are Misleading
The Internet's Stumbling Block: Using AbeBooks and Amazon for Pricing One big stumbling block in buying and selling books in the age of the internet is the dependence upon websites like AbeBooks and...
Thomas Jefferson: America’s Most Extraordinary Antique Book Collector
Facts About Thomas Jefferson's Books Did you know that one of America's most influential founding fathers was also one of early America's most extraordinary antique book collectors? That's right,...
Antique Cookbook Discovery: How a Kid Turned £1 into £50
I'll never forget my first antique book discovery. I was nine years old. It was at a car boot sale in London - a flea market, as the Americans would say - and there in a pile of junk was a late...
5 Tips on How to Sell Old Books that Aren’t Collectible
Quick Guide: Selling (or disposing of) old books So you've got a pile of old books you'd like to get rid of, but have discovered that they may not have any serious value. If you're not sure if...
Yo, Rocky! Sylvester Stallone’s Collection of Rare Antique Boxing Books
Selling antique books can be really fun, especially when you love what you're doing like I do. In my business, I regularly participate in and attend auctions for rare antique books. You never know...
Old Books Re-Imagined as New Artwork
An artist creates his works from the ruins of old, unwanted books like dictionaries, encyclopedias and textbooks, taking an exacto knife to the old pages and carving away.
What is vellum binding on an antique book?
What's the definition of "vellum"? Vellum is essentially a fine skin binding, very popular in centuries past for its durable uses as a book binding material and a means of providing a writing...
Discovering History in WWI Letters from a Soldier on the Western Front
I love uncovering antique ephemera. One of the most fascinating insights into history which really makes the past personal are old letters and postcards from years gone by. "Somewhere in France"...
Dos-a-Dos Book Appears Among Most-Watched Auctions
Our recent auction for the rare 1630 dos-a-dos antique Bible appeared among the most-watched listings at Collectors Weekly online which profiles some of the best in antiques, vintage items and...
Finding the Value of Old Books: What Age Makes a Book Antique?
Antique book values prove that age is just a number In the world of collectible antique books, "old" means OLD. To the surprise of many antique book collectors who are just getting started, 19th...