What are these books worth and how could I go about selling them?
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Many people have old books they think are valuable and would like to sell. Most old dictionaries, references etc., have very little value, a few dollars at most. Encyclopedias dated after 1923 are essentially worthless but crafters may be interested for the old pictures. Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc., receive donations of tons of old encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference books but send them to recycling centers or dumps as they cannot use or sell them.
I doubt they have any value. I have books from the late 1700's which have no value except to me. No-one wants reference books, dictionaries or encyclopaedias any more because they have google. There are far too many around for them to be rare enough to be of value. I don't even think charity shops would want them because they could not sell them.
If they were mine, I would make a brief search online, just to check they are not rare and collectible ( highly unlikely). Then I would put them on the wood burner for fuel which would save me more money on my heating bills than any sale would make, because personally I wouldn't want them taking up space.
You however might like them, in which case just keep them for use and for show on your bookshelves.
If you don't want to keep them and can't find anyone who wants them, there are a lot of fun crafts that can be done with old books
Having said that, I've since done a search of completed listings on Ebay. Most listings didn't sell, but the odd few did. It may be worth checking the dates of the books that did sell to see if it is worth your while listing your own for sale if yours were published the same date. The ones that sold have the price shown in green
There is a website called Worthpoint. They have a
free trial. If you have many items to sell it may pay to subscribe. If it's just this,
use the free trial.
Try somewhere that is interested in vintage Americana - some museums and small collections might like to have them, but I'm sure they wouldn't pay a lot.
Most encyclopedias have very little value - even really old volumes so most likely yours would be of insignificant value.
You may be able to find some information on eBay even old sets are very hard to sell and a single volume even more so.
You can research with Google and eBay and you may be lucky enough to have a jewel - wouldn't that be nice??
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