Selling Books and Records From an Estate: What Has Value

What is actually worth money on the shelves

Start with the honest picture. Most books in most houses are book club editions, paperbacks, reference sets, condensed volumes and the bestsellers of their decade, and there are millions of copies of each. They sell at an estate sale for a dollar or two, or by the bag on the last day, and no other route pays more. The same is true of most records: the easy-listening, show tunes, Christmas albums and orchestral sets that fill a typical collection were pressed in enormous numbers and have almost no resale market whatever their condition.

The exceptions are narrow and they are real. A first edition of a book that later became famous, a signed copy, a scarce local history, a fine illustrated volume, an early or unusual pressing of a record in a genre collectors chase: any of these can be worth tens or hundreds of dollars, and occasionally far more, and they sit on the shelf between the book club editions looking identical from across the room. The point of sorting is not to appraise two thousand books. It is to spend an afternoon pulling out the fifty that deserve a second look, price those with care, and let the rest sell for what they sell for.

What makes a book valuable

Age alone does not. A book from 1880 with no particular author, subject or scarcity is worth less than a good paperback from 1980 that has become hard to find. What buyers pay for is some combination of the following, and a book usually needs two or three of them together.

• A first edition of a book people care about. The first printing of a novel that became famous, a landmark science or history title, or a children's book that has been loved for generations. Check the copyright page: "first edition" or "first printing" stated plainly, or a number line that includes a 1, are the usual signs, though every publisher did it differently and some said nothing at all.
• The dust jacket. For a twentieth-century hardcover this is often most of the value. A first edition with its original jacket in good condition can be worth many times the same book without one, and a jacket wrapped in a clear protective cover is a sign somebody knew that.
• A signature or inscription by the author, provided it is genuine and the author is somebody collectors want. An inscription to a named person is generally worth less than a plain signature, unless the person mattered.
• Scarcity. Small print runs, privately printed books, local and county histories, regimental and company histories, early travel and exploration accounts, and anything with a limited numbered edition stated in the front.
• Illustration and production. Fine bindings in leather, books with color plates by a known illustrator, private press books, early photographic books, and atlases and natural history volumes with hand-colored plates.
• Subject. Some subjects hold value almost regardless of the individual title: early aviation, fishing and hunting, mountaineering, the occult, cookbooks before about 1950, early computing, regional Americana, and specialist technical and medical books before about 1900.

What does not add value, whatever the family remembers: book club editions (usually smaller, on cheaper paper, with no price on the jacket flap), encyclopedias, condensed books, most Bibles unless very early, and leather-bound reprint series sold by subscription, however handsome they look on a shelf.

What makes a record valuable

Records follow the same logic with a different vocabulary. Condition matters more than with books, because a record that does not play cleanly has lost most of its value, and the genre matters enormously.

• Genre. Collectors chase jazz, blues, soul and funk, garage and psychedelic rock, punk, early hip-hop, reggae, and certain classical performers and audiophile labels. They mostly do not chase easy listening, big band compilations, show tunes, religious choirs, comedy, or the albums that every household bought in the same year.
• The pressing. A first pressing of a sought-after album is worth more than a later one, and the difference is in small details: the label design, the catalog number, the codes scratched into the run-out groove near the center, and whether the sleeve is a first-issue design. Collectors' sites list these by album, and a phone photo of the label and the run-out groove is enough to check.
• Format. Original mono pressings of some 1950s and 1960s albums are worth more than the stereo. Early 45s with picture sleeves, 12-inch singles in dance genres, and 78s by early blues and country artists have their own markets. Most 78s, however, are worth very little; the shellac era produced them by the million.
• The sleeve. An original inner sleeve, an intact poster or insert, and a cover without ring wear, splits or writing all add to the price. A record without its cover is worth a fraction of the same record with it.
• Sealed and promotional copies. A still-sealed copy of a desirable album, or a promotional copy marked as such on the label, can carry a premium.

Do not assume that a record is worthless because the artist is unknown to you, or valuable because the artist is famous. A privately pressed album by a regional band that made two hundred copies can be worth more than a chart-topping album that sold ten million.

How to sort a house of them in an afternoon

The fast method is triage, not research. Go through everything once, quickly, pulling out only what meets a simple rule, and research the small pile afterwards. Two people can do a large library in a few hours this way.

1. Books: pull anything with a dust jacket that is a novel or a nonfiction title you recognize as significant, anything published before about 1900, anything on the subjects listed above, anything with a signature, anything in leather or with color plates, and any local history. Everything else stays on the shelf.
2. Records: pull anything in the collectors' genres, anything that looks privately made, anything sealed, anything marked as a promotional copy, and any 78s by blues, country or jazz artists. Leave the easy listening and the Christmas albums where they are.
3. Check the pulled pile against sold prices, using the completed listings on the large marketplaces and the collectors' databases, not the asking prices. The guide to finding out whether something is valuable explains the method. Anything with sold results below about twenty dollars goes back with the rest.
4. Set aside what is left. This is the pile that gets priced individually, kept out of the bag sale, and, if it is large enough, shown to a dealer or an auction house.

Look inside the books as you go. Older people used books as filing cabinets, and cash, letters, photographs, stock certificates and savings bonds turn up between the pages of a library more often than anyone expects. The guide to documents and personal papers covers what to do with what you find.

Grading condition honestly

Every price you find online is for a stated condition, and the difference between grades is most of the price. Book dealers use a scale that runs from fine (as new) through very good and good down to fair and poor, and they describe the book and the jacket separately. A book with a torn jacket, a cracked hinge, foxing on the pages, a water stain, a previous owner's name in ink, or a missing plate has moved down the scale, and each step down halves the price or worse. Mold and smoke smell are close to fatal for anything but the scarcest titles.

Records are graded from mint through near mint, very good plus, very good, good and poor, and the disc and the sleeve are graded separately. Look at the disc under a good light for scratches, scuffs and the gray haze of groove wear; a visual grade is how most sales are described, and the honest sellers say so. Warping, a crack, a deep scratch that would make the needle skip, or a sleeve with a split seam or ring wear all bring the grade down sharply. If you do not own a turntable, do not guess at how a record plays; describe what you can see and say that it is ungraded for play.

Whatever you do, grade conservatively. A buyer who receives a book described as very good and finds it good will send it back; one who expected good and received very good will come back for more.

How to price books and records at an estate sale

At the sale itself, the two piles are handled in opposite ways. The bulk of the shelves is priced to move: a flat price per hardcover and per paperback, a lower one per record, and a "fill a bag" price on the final day. The purpose is to get the volume out of the house, because whatever is left after the sale becomes a disposal problem. The set-aside pile is priced individually, at something below the sold prices you found (a buyer at an estate sale expects a discount for taking the risk on condition and for the lack of a return policy), and kept where staff can see it: a locked case for the genuinely valuable, a separate table for the rest.

An estate sale company will do this sort for you, and a good one knows the difference between a book club edition and a first. Ask at the walk-through how the company handles a large library or record collection, whether it researches individual titles, and whether it has a dealer it calls for the good pieces. A company that prices every book at the same dollar is not wrong for most of the shelves, but it is leaving the fifty good ones on the table. The guide to what sells best at estate sales puts books and records in context with everything else in the house.

Who buys in bulk

After the sale, what is left is a wall of ordinary books and records, and the question is who will take them. In rough order of what each pays, with the understanding that all of it varies by town:

• Used book dealers and record shops will look at a whole collection, take what they can sell and sometimes make a single offer for the lot. Expect the offer to be low relative to what the books would fetch one at a time, because the dealer is paying for the labor of sorting and storing. A dealer who specializes in the subject the collection is strongest in will pay more than a general shop. Send photographs of the shelves first; most will tell you from a photo whether it is worth a visit.
• Online bulk buyers pay by weight or by the box and arrange pickup. The money is small but the house gets emptied.
• Library book sales and friends-of-the-library groups accept donations of most books in clean condition and will often collect a large lot. They usually decline encyclopedias, condensed books, textbooks and anything damp.
• Charity shops take books and records and give a receipt. Call first for a large quantity; many have limits.
• Recycling is the honest destination for damp, moldy or broken books and for records too worn to play. Nobody wants them, and a company's clean-out crew will charge to remove them.

If the collection is large and good, an auction house that handles books or records may take it as a single lot or in several, and the guide to estate sale versus auction explains how the fees and the timing compare. For the ordinary remainder, the guide to what to do with the things nobody wants walks through the options in the order to try them, and this one explains how a donation receipt works.

What to do next

Spend an afternoon pulling the fifty books and records that pass the tests above, check them against sold prices, and keep that pile out of the bag sale. Let everything else be priced to move, and line up a dealer or a library sale for whatever is left. If you would rather have a company do the sort, ask at the walk-through how it handles a library.

When you are ready to hear from companies near you, describe the estate once and local companies will reach out to you, free. The guide to overlooked treasures covers the other quiet places value hides in an ordinary house.

Frequently asked questions