It is important to point
out, however, that incunabula represent a special case. “There’s a
misunderstanding that age equals value,” says Wahlgren. “It doesn’t.” The worth
of a specific book depends on at least three factors: its rarity, its
desirability and its cultural importance—or as Bauman puts it, “whether it had a
tremendous impact on the world.” (With rare exceptions, the most desirable
version of a book is its first edition, which is a copy that belongs to its
initial commercial printing.) Once a book meets these three criteria, its
physical condition comes into play. Ragged, dog-eared copies are obviously worth
less than pristine copies of the same tome. Consider, for example, two first
edition copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, one in mint condition and the other in
scruffier shape. Weinstein estimates that the former could be worth from $20,000
to $25,000 and the latter worth $5,000 to $6,000. Missing dust jackets, that
sleeve of paper that covers modern hardcovers, can seriously dent the overall
value. “Something can be 100 times more valuable with the dust jacket,” Bauman
says.
But when a book is sufficiently rare, desirable and important,
condition matters less, and sometimes not at all. Weinstein says that even when
rebound, Issac Newton’s Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the
revolutionary 1687 volume in which Newton states the law of gravity, can command
six figures. In its original binding, a copy can fetch $225,000, he notes. While
complete volumes of the Gutenberg Bible are nearly impossible to acquire,
Weinstein does have individual leaves of the book in stock for $35,000 to
$65,000 each. The pages come from a pair of defective copies that were broken up
during the 1920s.
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