If you have a first edition 1966 Random House "Valley Of The Dolls" in your
garage, you may be one up on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. And you don't have
to go onto "The Antique Roadshow" to appraise it. In many cases, an
excursion into cyberspace will do the trick.
The most user-friendly way to find the value of your book is to hop onto a
search service, punch in the details of your tome and hit the hot buttons.
You'll frequently find someone selling a similar book or someone in search
of the title. Either way, you'll get a feel for what value has
been attached to it by booksellers and collectors. If you find both,
you'll get a pretty solid idea of where the book stands. That
Jacqueline Susann novel we mentioned? It's selling for $75.
- Advanced Book Exchange
Touted as the "world's largest network of independent booksellers," this
site enables visitors to buy and sell rare, used and out-of-print books.
There's a new feature each week and the "Ask Abe" section fields inquiries.
Plug your book info into the site's search engine and it will pull up
matches from its network of 18 million listings.
- Books and Books Collecting
If you can't find your book on the Web, there's a chance you'll find it
through this search engine. The engine searches the collections of 22 online
booksellers. If that's not enough, the guide recommends 39 additional book
sites.
- Alibris
Part of this site's goal is to turn you into a book connoisseur. If you
click on the "learn" link and then on "glossary of book terms," you'll soon
be littering cocktail soirees with your newfound knowledge of collectible
manuscripts.
- Faded Giant
Use this site to get an online appraisal for your book, or just browse the recent appraisals. The site also offers articles on collecting and book trivia.
--- D.K.
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