Tips for Discovering Rare Books in the Wild
There are many ways to find rare books to add to your collection but it helps if you have a clear idea of what you want to collect and why you want to collect it. Every collector is different. Some collect a certain author, others collect anything within a specific genre and still others collect anything they think may appreciate in value. Before you begin looking for rare books, you need to know what you want as some sources are better for one collector while different sources work best for another collector.
If you are looking for particular books, you should be contacting any rare book dealers that you can find. A search online will turn up websites for many of these dealers. You can also check locally for any rare book dealers. Even the smallest store may have access to sources that you wouldn’t be aware of. Most dealers will search specifically for you and try their hardest to help you find the volume you’re looking for.
Even when you are not searching for a specific item, you could still contact the rare book dealers if you collect a specific genre, author or style of book. Local dealers are great because once they get to know you as a customer and true collector, they will often keep the details of what you collect and contact you whenever they come across something you might be interested in.
Other sources for rare books includes yard sales (also called tag sales, garage sales, lawn sales, etc), estate sales, antique shops and auctions. Often people don’t realize that what they have may be valuable and you can find the occasional treasure buried in a box of miscellaneous books. Antique shops will often have old or rare books but you need to research value before purchasing. General antique dealers often don’t really know the rare book market and tend to overprice based simply on age or just guesswork. Auctions, both offline and online, can sometimes be good sources but it tends to be rather hit or miss.
Hey I found this site by scouring Bing and just wanted to say thanks for the information on selling. I sell my unused books at Book Turtle but will have to check this out!