Are Rare Books Good Investments?
Rare books can make very good investments but you truly have to know what you are doing to have a good chance of your collection being worth a lot of money someday. Typically, books will appreciate at approximately the same rate as the stock market and at about the same as the rate of inflation. The thing is that like the stock market, rare books are a long-term investment. You can’t expect to buy collectible books today and sell them for a profit in just a few months or often even a few years.
It does happen on occasion, of course, when someone finds a rare book and manages to get it far less than the real value. This could be by finding a hidden gem on an estate auction or by finding one in a box of books while cleaning out the attic. Obviously, this is not a real investment strategy as you must be incredibly lucky to make such a find so it is not something that you can count on.
Books can also go down in value, just as the stock market. Sometimes this is because of fashion trends. Just as with other collectibles, there are trends in rare book collecting where certain periods or authors are in high demand for a few years and then the demand drops for whatever reason. On occasion, the drop in value could be related to hitherto undiscovered volumes being found and so there are more copies available than previously. The more rare the volume is, the more valuable it will tend to be.
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