Rare Book Hub Introduces Rare Book Batch Valuation Service

Rare Book Hub is launching the beta version of its Rare Book Batch Valuation service this month and will be officially accepting member submitted lists of material beginning October 15th. Batch Valuation is a new service that enables you to quickly search for auction lot matches to your entire book collection in our database of over 12 million records. Instead of searching titles one at a time, Batch Valuation enables you to submit a list of hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands at once for automated searches.

Next, for each matching lot for each title found, we update past sales prices to current value using an inflation index based entirely on book auction sales prices (not a standard formula like CPI). From those, we provide an Excel spreadsheet showing both the average and mean inflation adjusted value of all lots for each title you submit. We also provide a list of all the underlying records on another sheet of the Excel file to make cataloging, sorting, and filtering easier. Additionally, a probability of reappearance at auction (measured in years) is included based on how frequently the title has come up for sale in the past.

Finally, we sum up all of the inflation adjusted values, both average and mean, to give you estimates of the value of your entire collection. A practical means of estimating the value of a large collection based on actual sales prices has never before been possible.

Who Is This For?

This service will assist collectors in estimating the value of their books and anticipating expected prices when they sell, booksellers to determine inventory value and reasonable selling and buying prices, auction houses in valuing the collections offered to them and setting estimated prices and preparing descriptions for sales, and libraries for valuing their large collections, estimating deaccession values, determining appropriate insurance amounts, and deciding whether to accept collections offered.

Free Trial for Annual Subscribers

Since Batch Valuation is still in Beta formation, we are making free test runs available to paid annual subscribers to the Rare Book Transaction History at no cost. Up to 3 runs of up to 500 titles may be submitted without charge now through December 31, 2022. Naturally, we welcome your feedback as we work to perfect the presentation of results and the algorithms that power the estimates to best serve your needs.

How to submit your lists:

Create a simple spreadsheet with the following columns:

1. Number

2. Author’s last name

3. Title [up to 7 words]

4. Date printed

5. Place Published

Example, with required headers:

InternalCatalogID	Author	Title	YearPrinted	PlacePrinted
1	Stoker	Dracula	1897
2	Dickens	Great Expectations	1861	London
3	Whitman	Leaves of Grass	1855
4	Salinger	The Catcher in the Rye	1951	Boston
5	Browning	Men and Women	1855	London
6	Sinclair	The Jungle	1906	New York
[…]	[…]	[…]	[…]	[…]

*Note: It is very important to provide title, author, and year printed, if at all possible. Matches cannot be made without a title and may not be as accurate without the other two.

In your email please provide:

Client Name

Individual, Company or Institution name

Phone number (optional)

Your RBH username (account log-in name)

Email associated with your account (if different from the one being used to send the email)

You’ll email your list to tom@rarebookhub.com and we’ll process it quickly.

Note: Lists not in the proper format may be correctable but will take longer and may incur charges. We will notify you first.

Contact tom@rarebookhub.com and bmckinney@rarebookhub.com

To speak in person, call Bruce McKinney. Our phone numbers are 877.323.8273 or 415.823.6678. When calling, leave a message and preferred time to respond.