FD visits the Shopgoodwill.com auction site often. It’s a well done site — easy to navigate and full of possibilities. Plus, if one does buy something, there’s the added benefit that you’re supporting a worthy charity. But as the various member shops that offer items through the site stress, they aren’t professional appraisers. Thus, one sometimes sees items whose opening price seems to have been mis-set. FD doesn’t know enough about many categories to judge, but has seen some mistakes in the book section, most frequently, the idea that if an item seems rare, it must be valuable.
It’s an easy mistake to make, and one that we all probably make when we consider what we ourselves own and value. For example, when trying to price a book, one might look to see how many others are available on existing sites for books sales. Perhaps no other copies are listed on a large site like ABE. Or perhaps ther is one or two copies, and they have large prices attached. Does this mean the item is worth hundreds of dollars?? Not necessarily. Ultimately, demand is what drives prices — the buyer, not the seller, is the real determinator of value. FD owns many small press magazines and books that can be considered rare, in that they were published in tiny editions, by obscure outfits. A few of them are also valuable, but most are just curiosities. Perhaps they will be valued on the market more highly one day in the future, or they may continue to be of value primarily to FD, who knew the authors personally.
The other frequent mistake in the book section is not considering condition. Books are sturdy items, and too many of them exist in good shape for those in bad shape to have much value, even if they are a first edition of an otherwise desired volume!