Pricing Scarce and Rare Books and Manuscripts

Abstract

How are rare or scarce items priced? Not easily.

There was a comedian back in the 1950s named Brother David Gardner. When someone would say, “Let’s do that again,” Brother Dave would say, “You can’t do anything again. You can do something similar.” Well, if a book or manuscript is truly rare or unique, you will not be able to find anything exactly comparable to base your price on, so you must find something similar.

In order to provide a complete picture of the process of pricing, we must consult all the sources, though some of these may not be . . .