Many (read: most) of you know that one of our activities (not quite a business, not quite a hobby) is selling used books on line. We sell about 250 a year, averaging about $30 a book (except for those which sell for many times that). We pay an average of $4 or $5 for each book, and we have about 7,000 on line for sale. We are very lazy about this non-business/non-hobby. We have our inventory listed in one place only, and we sure don’t try to promote. Maybe someday all that will change.

The books are all second hand. The majority are signed or inscribed by the author. Many relate to politics. Many relate to Jewish subjects. The others relate to about everything you can imagine. We have learned that the signed books that sell, sell because it is hard to find signed copies. In other words, although many people would like to own a book signed by Tom Clancy, there are so many available that someone is bound to undercut your price and the chance that someone would select the copy you have as opposed to copies held by 50 or more other booksellers is not very likely. On the other hand, if you have one of the only copies of a book signed Author ben Author, even if the demand is not very wide spread, it is more likely that yours will be acquired.

How do I price the books? Not very scientifically, I am afraid. I go to the Abebooks website (www.abebooks.com) and look to see how others have priced the book, comparing condition, edition and so forth. It gets tough when you can’t find out how others have valued the same book, or when there is something that makes your books stand out from others that are being sold.

Let’s take some examples. Nathan Glazer was an American sociologist who passed away at 95 in 2019. He taught at U Cal Berkeley and at Harvard. His best known book, among many, was Beyond the Melting Pot: the Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and Irish of New York City, which was published in 1963. There are two signed copies of this book for sale on Abebooks, one offered at $350 and one at $950. Sure, these prices seem high, but it seems that Nathan Glazer did not autograph many books over his long career.

Nathan Glazer had friends named Joe and Millie. That’s all I know about them, except they were friends over many years, and Glazer inscribed at least four books to them over those years. The books are Beyond the Melting Pot, Remembering the Answers: Essays on the American Student Revolt, Ethnic Dilemmas, 1964-1982, and The Limits of Social Policy.

Either Joe and Millie, or their children, decided it was time to depart with their books, and they were donated to the Montgomery County library, and put up for sale at $5 for three of the books and $10 for the Melting Pot. (Remember, we are not “profiting” by the sale of the books, which go into an account for grandchildren education)

When I said that Glazer didn’t appear to sign books, I meant it. The two Melting Pots on sale are the only ones listed on the website. So the question is: how should I price these books? The answer is: I have no idea. So, they will just sit here a while longer.

A few other examples. I have a copy of a book titled Years of Content, 1858-1886, written by Sir George Leveson Gower, K.B.E., and published in London in 1940. I know you have never heard of Gower. Gower was born in 1858, and at the age of 22 became the private secretary to British prime minister William Gladstone, a job which he held until 1885, ending when the period covered by this book ended. He later entered Parliament as a Liberal, ending his career as Commissioner of Woods and Forests (I don’t know what that entailed, but I bet it was fun).

This book is not signed by Gower, but that is okay, because accompanying it is a six page letter written by Gower (I have not had the energy to read the entire thing) in 1940 to his friend “Florence”. (I assume Florence was a friend; maybe a relative.) And I have a copy of another, somewhat shorter letter, written to Florence by Cicely Gower, his wife, in 1951, shortly after Gower died, giving Florence the news.

I don’t know if Gower himself was “important” as far as British history goes, but the fact that he spent five years as Gladstone’s secretary is quite important, and it is this period that the book discusses. And clearly these letters, being originals and one of a kind, add to value to historians and perhaps others. There are only three copies of this book available on the Abebooks site, and one of them is signed. You can have it sent from England for about $45. But how do I price the book with these letters included?

Do you know Benedict Sarnov? He was a very prominent Soviet (and later Russian) literary critic and intellectual who died in 2014. I have a copy of his books Perestante Udivliatcia (yes, it’s in Russian), which he inscribed and signed (also in Russian). The title means something like “Don’t be Surprised” and the subtitle is “unpublished history”. Nobody has anything signed by Benedict Sarnov for sale. And not that many Americans read Russian. How do you price something like this?

One more example (out of hundreds). Speaking of the High Holy Days, I have the first volume of a Machzor (the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), covering the first of the two holidays. Hard copy. Very nice condition. I don’t have a date. It was published in Warsaw. The editor was named A. Kahan and the publisher G. Piment. It contains not only the full liturgy, but much commentary, with each level of commentary written in a different font.

There are many liturgical books from pre-war Poland available, so most are not priced too high. And while there are experts on pre-war Jewish books, I am not one of them. I would guess that this book was published between 1920 and 1938, but I can’t get more specific than that. I have no idea how to price it, even if I wanted to sell it.