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Estate Talks | Estate Books | Steve Eisenstein
Main Link: Estate Talks Podcast: What’s on the Estate Shelves with Guest Steve Eisenstein
Books are a common estate property and can vary from donation foder to the very valuable. Discerning which is the responsibility of the executor.
Executorium Publisher, George Compton discusses books with Steven “The Bookman” Eisenstein. How to approach the books. In a short time, Compton and Eisenstein discuss concerns such as first editions, the value of dust jackets, collectible categories and subcategories, selling books, appraising books, evaluating books, and the differences of each. Some examples of elements in rare books to be aware of.
This episode of Executorium’s Estate Talks was broadcast on Wednesday, January 31, 2024.
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The following transcript excerpt has been edited for readability.
EX:
EX: Welcome to Estate Talks. I’m George Compton the publisher of Executorium. Today we’re talking about books. We hope to provide answers and give you some basics so you ask better questions. Today our guest is Steve “The Bookman” Eisenstein. Steve has been in the book business since 1968. He’s the voice of “Books on the Bookshelf,” a weekly broadcast net radio show about books, Saturdays 10 to 12 on WDBFradio.com. He’s the admin of the mighty Facebook Group “Vintage, Rare and Antique Books” a great community of book experts and collectors and hobbyists. Steve is an appraisal expert and owner of Bricka Book Shop in Miami Beach Florida.
Welcome Steve.
SE: Hey thank you very much George, it’s an absolute pleasure to be here and in the time we have I hope that we can impart some knowledge to those of you who are watching this live or in the future. Books are an overwhelming thing to a lot of people in estates especially when they have a lot of them. You walk into the main room of the house and there’s a 2,000-book library that’s been in the family for generations. Some of those books even have a story attached to them that’s been passed down in the family.
Sidebar note: Most of those stories are not accurate. I use an example of something, and I apologize for the nature of the example, but it’s highly illustrative. I’ve been doing this since 1968, that’s 54 years. So, from 68 into the early 90s, we would have people that would come into just our store or wherever we were at the time and say, “Hey my uncle was so and so, and during World War II he was in Germany, and he was in the bunker, and he got “this.” Okay, this could have been a book, this could have been a knife, whatever it is. If you added up all those stories about things that family relatives in World War II found, in the so-called bunker, the bunker would be about 15 airplane hangers in size.
So don’t shoot the messenger if they tell you, and show you factually, well I’m sorry your family story is not accurate, and here’s why. Just a cautionary note, that happens a lot.
So when you’re looking at this library, and you’re overwhelmed, back away from it for a minute. If you got a pencil and paper, or you can keep playing this on rewind, copy this down. I’ll refer to it later. There are places that you can go to get pricing comparisons. They are dealer asking prices, but they’re not always accurate. You know when you look at something, and you see 50 copies of a book the same title as yours, and a bunch of them are in similar condition, you might see a super high price; a bunch of super low prices. In the middle is what the fair market average would generally be.
And when you’re looking at these sites, Vialibri.net is one, or an easier one to remember, Addall.com, we don’t know if the books sold at that price.
And if you’re looking for the people, they’ll give you the name of the dealer that was selling the book. Look for credential letters after that dealer’s name. It could be something like, FABA. I have Florida Antiquarian Book Dealers Association. Long Island Antiquarian Book Dealers Association. Rocky Mountain Book Sellers. All across the country there are regional and state groupings of book dealers.
What does that mean? It means that those people pass the vetting process of their peers and, you know, you don’t have as much to worry about as if you’re dealing with a stranger.
The family library is made up of everything from fiction to nonfiction, so let’s go with the most important thing that I can impart in a simple sentence, “Age has nothing to do with the value of a book.” I’m going to wet your appetite to look for this book. Find the first edition of The Great Gatsby. It’s going to be a book with green cloth, gilt titles, and hopefully a paper dust jacket. When it comes to fiction, this paper dust jacket – if you had a fine book, and a fine dust jacket on The Great Gatsby, $200,000 would be a realistic price for that book. Don’t expect to find it. It’s kind of hard to find, but maybe you will.
Okay, so the book with the jacket is 200,000. Take the dust jacket off the book – you can get 150 or more for the dust jacket but it the retail value on the book without the dust jacket dependent on how fine the guilt is that’s still on the titles and all of that – anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000 are asking prices these days.
So, in fiction, it has to be a collectible author. Do not get the disease, “first-edition-it is”, which is my own word.
Please see the video for the full program content:
https://youtu.be/tO-czPSlyRo
Steven Eisenstein
Bio
Steven Eisenstein is the owner of Bric A Book Bookshop in Miami Beach, FL. He has been in the book business since 1968. He is been the host of the WDBF.fm show, Bucks on the Bookshelf, Sat 10AM EST.
Steve has been a dealer, speaker, and writer on the subject of books throughout his career.
Disclaimer: The opinions of Executorium’s Estate Talks hosts and Estate Talks guests are not necessarily the opinion of Executorium.com LLC, its principals, or its employees.
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