It often happens that no one opens books from the home library for years, and the library itself becomes too voluminous and takes up a lot of space. Of course, you can take unnecessary books to some regional library, but it is quite possible that in such a library the book will never find its reader. What if someone else really needs something that you don’t need? Today, many people are very successful in selling books from home libraries. How they do this and how you can do it will be discussed below. (The Leather Mosaic company offers very favorable conditions. You can contact us regarding the sale of antiquarian and second-hand books by calling 8916-694-4839, 8910-409-0768).

If you have old, rare publications at home, then the best way to sell them is to take them to an antique and used bookstore, where your volumes will be appraised and put up for sale. You will receive money for them after sale. True, a buyer may not be found right away - sometimes it happens that in second-hand bookstores books wait for a buyer for years, and you need to be prepared for this. We advise you to approach the issue of valuation very carefully: unfortunately, there are often cases when the cost of a book is underestimated. How to avoid this? Knowledgeable people say that it would be a good idea to go to several second-hand bookstores and compare the results. Yes, it will take time, but you will be sure that the price for your books is fair.

Below we will look at other ways to properly sell your home library.

The second way to sell old books is through an advertisement on the Internet or in the media. You need to find such a publication or a special portal dedicated to this topic and leave your ad there. It’s better to do this on several sites, then those who want to buy a book from you will respond much faster. There are many portals dedicated to selling books from your home library. If you decide to leave an ad, take it as seriously as possible: describe in detail what publication(s) you have available - indicate the year of issue, condition, number of copies. Plus, place a high-quality image of the book next to the description; it’s best if there are several images: a cover, a title page, a couple of pages. This way, anyone who is interested in your offer will have a complete understanding of it.

There is another option to sell books from your home library - try to find a buyer who specializes in purchasing valuable, antique publications. Of course, this will take you a little longer, but the result is worth it. By the way, there is the International Antiquarian Book League - it’s worth looking for those interested in purchasing, first of all, there. Most often, members of this league are looking for rare editions of textbooks, antique copies of fiction, and pre-revolutionary books. Communication with potential buyers can be interesting and useful for yourself - you will learn a lot of new things: what books are in demand, what are the prices for them.

A fairly simple way: try entering queries like “looking for a book” or “buying a book” into a search engine. It's possible that someone is looking for exactly what you want to sell. The advantage of this method is that the sale is carried out without intermediaries. Then everything is very simple: using the specified contacts, you contact a potential buyer and negotiate the terms of purchase. Sometimes bargaining is possible: the buyer may ask you to reduce the price a little. Whether you should do it or not is up to you to decide. You, in turn, can slightly increase the price if you realize that your book is of interest.

Let's consider another option - you have a series of books, scientific or fiction. In this case, it makes sense to try to find a buyer willing to purchase the entire series. Such purchases are usually made by collectors seeking to expand their collection of rare publications.

Let's say you are already our customer who is ready to purchase books from you. The most reliable sales option is a personal meeting, for example, in the subway. If for some reason this is not possible, use postal services (cash on delivery). This will help you protect yourself from scammers.

Selling a home library is not a quick process. But, believe me, there are a lot of people who are looking for this or that book that is no longer in print and is considered a rarity. Your for sale ad could serve someone well and help them. You, in turn, will free up space in your apartment and get good money.

If you still want to simplify the sale of your library as much as possible, you can contact us, the Leather Mosaic company: we buy both antique (pre-1940 editions) and second-hand book editions (post-1940 editions). We offer very favorable conditions. You can contact us by phone: 8916-694-4839, 8910-409-0768.

Almost everyone who “comes from the USSR” has closets, pantries, attics and balconies filled with old books. Today, a whole library fits in one e-book. Back in the day, stocked bookshelves were considered a sign of “coolness.” Some of my parents’ acquaintances practically did not read, but they still bought books - for “beauty” and “respect.”

If you no longer need all this stuff, you can try to sell it: put it up for auction, take it to a used bookstore or antique store, offer it to friends, or place an ad on the Internet. Well, or hand it over to waste paper.

Who buys old books? Today, as antiques, they are purchased either by collectors, interior designers, or those who like to make original gifts.
So, what books can be sold at a high price, a list and useful recommendations!

In Russia, antiques include things older than 50 years. Everything else is considered second-hand books. In theory, books published before 1966 are considered antiques and should be worth a lot. But not everything is so simple... Thousands of copies of Russian and Soviet authors are not of particular value on the market. They can only be sold to themed cafes and shops - to create the appropriate atmosphere.

Unfortunately, second-hand bookstores in Russia operate only in large cities. Unfortunately, there is nothing like this in Chita or Voronezh.

The rules for accepting books from the population are quite strict. Publications with the stamp of state and public libraries and other institutions (for example, universities) are strictly not accepted. The only exception is the “extinguished” stamp.

Second-hand booksellers do not accept books for sale that are in poor condition, without a title page, or with typographical defects. Well, of course, the subject matter of the books is of great importance. You can't sell tabloids or pornography to stores.

But they willingly accept thematic textbooks, dictionaries and reference books for implementation (the famous collection of Scanavi problems or “Fundamentals of Radio Engineering”). But art books published in multi-million copies are not accepted by second-hand booksellers. The “black list” includes everything related to the Soviet period: atlases, books on the history of the CPSU, collected works of leaders, propaganda literature about the war or labor exploits.

Although some collectors advise not to throw away all these memories about the “construction of the BAM” or the “siege of Leningrad”. Such books will no longer be reprinted. This means that over time, they can seriously increase in price.

But the second-hand bookstore includes files of old magazines: “Krokodil” or “Sovremennik”.

In addition, each store specializes in its own topic. For example, the Book Plus store in St. Petersburg buys expensive books on archeology, military history, hunting, esotericism, ethnography and linguistics. They also accept illustrated children's books, magazines, prints and even postcards.

We are opening another website - the Moscow antique store “Bukinist”. The “We are looking” section contains a whole list of books that can be sold at a good price. Here are complete collected works, the Military Encyclopedia of 1911-1915, and books from the Prosveshcheniye publishing house.

A small edition, the author's autograph and its excellent condition can increase the cost of a book. Well, and of course, the higher the “individuality” of a book, the more expensive it is valued. There are copies made to special order, there are first editions by the author, there are books with dedicatory inscriptions or notes from the owner. By the way, for children's books illustrations are more important than titles.

How does the payment process work?

As a rule, the owner of the book receives payment only after its sale. The store keeps 20-50% of the cost of the goods as a commission. If a book collects dust on the counter for a long time, it is subject to markdown. Sometimes commodity experts come to your home for assessment and accept entire collections of books for sale. True, no one will strain for the sake of one or two books - only if you are planning a “wholesale” sale.

How much can old books cost?

Of course, each individual book needs to be evaluated individually. But there is also an approximate price range for second-hand booksellers.

For example, the cost of church books depends on the century of their printing and general condition (intact bindings, presence of all leaves). For example, the price of a church book in good condition, printed in the 16th century, starts at 100,000 rubles. The 18th century is already valued at 5,000 rubles and more. Well, the cost of a church book from the 19th and early 20th centuries starts at only 1,000 rubles.

It is already much more difficult to evaluate a civil book. Its price depends on the subject and rarity. At one time, a topic is highly valued, but literally ten years later it is no longer of interest to anyone. For example, lifetime editions of the “leader of the proletariat” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in Soviet times cost crazy amounts of money. They were bought by private collectors, libraries and museums. Today their price has dropped tenfold, and there is practically no demand for “Leninist” literature.

Books published during the author’s lifetime are more expensive. And again, this does not apply to all classics, but only to writers of the “first echelon”: Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky. Today they also pay dearly for the poets of the “Silver Age”: Blok, Yesenin, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova. Especially if they were published before the revolution.

What books sell quickly but not expensively?

The following modern books are quickly sold through forums and thematic communities on social networks:

• Children's ones are in good condition (they are usually bought in bulk for yourself). Soviet children's books (and in any condition) can be sold at a high price. Some fairy tale by a foreign storyteller, published in a small edition, can even cost 2-5 rubles
• Technical and scientific Soviet literature (medicine, chemistry, machine tool building, higher mathematics, philology). There is also a demand for “near-scientific” and applied literature (sports, gardening, cooking, health, handicrafts)
• Biographies and books from the ZhZL series
• Books on art and music (especially albums with reproductions and sheet music)
• Any fiction books in foreign languages ​​(today everyone who is not too lazy learns foreign languages)
• Science fiction (some are looking for individual copies, others are collecting series)

useful links

• Online store of antiquarian and gift books "Leaderbooks". By the way, they buy old books from before 1940
• Online auction Bag
• The largest second-hand book website in Russia Alib.ru
• Another good site is an intermediary between buyers and book sellers "Old Book Lovers Club"

When publishing an advertisement for the sale of a book on the Internet, do not forget to take a photo (title page and a couple of pages) and describe the lot in detail (circulation, year of issue, condition)

How do you get rid of unnecessary books? Subscribe to updates and don't forget to share the most interesting posts with your friends on social networks!

Offers To you cooperation.

We will help you put things in order on your bookshelves and get a fair price for your books.

We will purchase books, coins, bonds, as well as busts and figurines.

FROM ANY CITIES OF RUSSIA.

We will consider any of your suggestions regarding books.. The years of publication and the degree of preservation are not decisive factors for us.

Our contacts:

Sell ​​books

To sell books, write only to Knizhnika's email - admin@site.

Calls and other requests will not be processed.

You can send a photo of a book or shelves, or send a list of available books.

If you have any questions about where to sell books, to whom to sell books, or are you looking for an offer to buy books, then you have come to the right place.

You can offer us any of your books. We will consider any of your suggestions. In any corner of Russia and the world. We may be interested in any book (in terms of design and/or content of the book in any condition). First of all - in Russian, less books in English and French, Latin, as well as multilingual publications.

Please communicate your price expectations at the very beginning of negotiations in order to avoid wasting time.

Our contact details are provided below. You can contact us in any way convenient for you.

Skype: muskitty1

E-mail: admin@site

We will consider any proposals related to books (with the exception of detective stories),

We are NOT interested in coins and bonds (paper money) after 1925. (with the exception of modern coins of Russia and the complete collection of commemorative rubles of the USSR),

We will consider any offers related to busts and figurines.

Questions and answers related to book evaluation and acceptance.

Why is it worth selling books to us?

Currently, selling books, especially in the provinces, has become quite problematic. The seller-buyer ratio today is approximately 40 to 1. Thus, for every 40 book offers, there is only one buyer. On average, a book edition is sold on the market in about 3-4 months. The general trend of the book market: the demand for book products is steadily falling, e-books are replacing pocket books over time.

Selling books to an online store , You are getting:

Objective assessment of the publication,

Additional information about the publication,

Possibility of free evaluation of the entire collection,

Cash payment for books, regardless of subsequent sales.

Guarantees and safety

We send our products by mail without prepayment (except for collections over 10 volumes)

We are a registered individual entrepreneur, detailed information can be found in the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs (USRIP),

We have a Webmoney system seller certificate, we can accept payments automatically,

We are a verified participant of the Yandex-money system,

We provide discounts to regular customers and users of other online stores,

The return of goods of proper (and improper) quality is carried out in full accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

You can read reviews about our work and products in the appropriate column (discussion) in the products that interest you.

How to describe the condition of the book?

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We may also request photographs of books during the correspondence process. Please send photographs in advance if pre-revolutionary books and coins are offered.

The following must be indicated as deficiencies: the absence of title and other pages, abrasions, the presence of restorations, the presence of dedicatory inscriptions, bold underlining in the text, library seals. (According to the accepted evaluation system, a book can be “excellent” even with stamps, but their presence must be indicated.), library pockets, store marks - price, inventory number, barcode sticker, etc. broken binding, tarnished gilding, if any, loss of dust jacket, cases, etc.

Which books are antique?

In our understanding, antique books are books published before 1918. By old we also mean antique books.

Factors that also influence the book rating system:

* the older the book, the more expensive it is

* history of the book - destroyed edition, illustrations by the artist

* the main role is played by demand (which, often, but not always, depends on the circulation of the publication)

What factors make books cheaper?

* most religious books after the 17th century

* books published by A. F. Marx (most)

* publications printed on low-quality paper

* books with stamps and seals

* posthumous editions

* books in foreign languages

* books that do not have dust jackets, ribbons, cases or other components

* books in large circulation (Truth, 1970s-80s books)

How can books be delivered?

The method of delivery and payment is selected individually.

A personal meeting is possible when purchasing a significant amount or when purchasing a large number of books. In this case, a meeting is possible in your city, but within the European part of Russia.

In all other situations, purchase and sale is carried out using postal or courier delivery. This method is the most reliable and safe for both the seller and the buyer.

Do you accept books with stamps, seals, pockets, and accession numbers?

Yes, we accept, but a book with stamps is cheaper.

How to evaluate a book yourself? How to evaluate an old antique book yourself?

The book trade, especially second-hand and antique books, is a unique phenomenon of the pure market. The basic law here is the law of supply and demand; it is this that determines the price of a book at a given time. Therefore, the price range - the difference in price between offers, averages from 2-3 to 20-40 times. Just think about it: the difference in prices for the same publication can fluctuate up to 40 times; the same book in different stores, all other things being equal, can be 40 times more expensive! The liquidity of a second-hand book publication depends, first of all, on circulation and supply, and, secondly, on current and general demand (how many people are ready to buy and are looking for a book at the moment). So, if the first edition of Eugene Onegin is of great interest to collectors who are ready to give several hundred thousand rubles for the treasured book, then ordinary citizens are unlikely to be ready to give even fifty. Therefore, if you want to evaluate the book yourself, you should focus on the following factors:

How many people are currently looking for a book?

An important factor when independently evaluating a book is the condition

The average time to sell a book is from one to four months,

As a rule, the most valuable publications are:

First editions of the classics,

Lifetime editions of classics,

Autograph books,

Limited circulation but in demand publications,

Richly illustrated editions, printed on good paper, hardcover,

First editions of well-known series (LP, ZhZL, Frames and others)

Books published before 1800

Books in Russian are more expensive than foreign language publications.

As a rule, large-circulation editions of Marx and religious publications after 1850 are notable for their low prices.

Relatively low price for the classics of socialist realism, Marxism-Leninism (Lenin, Stalin, Fadeev, Sholokhov, Gorky, etc.). This does not apply to the first editions and publications of pre-revolutionary times.

Lifetime books of repressed authors (L. Trotsky, etc.), destroyed editions (for example, volume 6 of the Complete Works of Pushkin by Brockhaus and Efron, the first and destroyed edition of Solzhenitsyn, Viktor Nekrasov), etc. have a high price.

Do you accept books for consignment?

We buy your books and pay for them IMMEDIATELY. According to the commission agreement, we can only accept books of our own composition and especially valuable coins and bonds, which we can also redeem for a one-time payment.

What is a dust jacket and how does it affect the evaluation of a book?

The dust jacket (so, supopble, super, supera) is an additional, usually removable part of the book. Simply put: a dust jacket is the “clothing” of a book that is put on the main cover. Most often, dust jackets are made from high-density paper. The presence of a dust jacket increases the value of the publication (of course, if it was published in super). For some publications, the presence of a dust jacket increases the price by more than than twice as many, for example, in Shakespeare in 8 volumes, the BVL series and the Library of Ancient Literature, and in many literary monuments.

Questions related to book evaluation.

In this part we will try to explain to you the pricing of second-hand books and antiquarian publications.

At the beginning of the article there are frequently asked questions.

You can read the pricing of the book below.

- I found exactly the same edition as in my online store. In this store it costs 500,000 rubles. Will you buy my publication for 450,000 rubles?

- Most likely, no.

Anyone who wants to sell (or buy) a book on the Internet can see a huge number of offers of a wide variety of books, in a wide variety of price categories. The most popular offerings tend to come from large online stores, which undoubtedly make huge profits and commissions from book sales.

Most online stores do not actually own the books they display. As a rule, they post photographs, information and descriptions of books that are sold in second-hand bookstores and antique salons in Moscow and St. Petersburg. At the same time, naturally, online stores add their own markup to the price. As a rule, the price of the book in the end TENS of times higher real market value.

You can look at the Ozon affiliate program (the part for those who want to sell books). It is put on public display, and anyone (individual entrepreneur or legal entity) can become a partner of Ozon.ru and supply books under a commission agreement (i.e., payment upon sale). The income of the Ozone book supplier is only 1/3 of the publication price. Is this fair? By and large, it is quite problematic for a private owner to sell most of the publications that Ozon is ready to buy. In addition, huge amounts of money are spent on maintaining such a portal - hosting, promotion, logistics, salaries for the support team, system administrators, http programmers, etc. It seems to us that this is quite fair.

You should not rely on the websites of expensive antique showrooms in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which are located in the center and have a huge client base. The buyers of these salons are, as a rule, wealthy people who buy books as a gift to a high-ranking person, or do not count their last money when collecting a library. The books that they (salons) exhibit, as a rule, are in excellent, very good condition, having undergone pre-sale preparation (for example, fastening the block if it was shaky; cleaning the binding, etc.), often in expensive custom-made bindings made of natural wood skin, etc. Their price includes (in addition to the markup itself), restoration costs, store maintenance costs, rent of premises, taxes, utilities, salaries, etc. Most of the books are books consigned by professional second-hand booksellers, who bought them at a price that is many times different from the price at which the store lists them. In conclusion, we can draw the following conclusion: the book, which passed from the first seller (owner) to the buyer, passed through the hands of several owners before being sold for the maximum amount. As a result, each owner receives only a certain percentage of the final amount.

As a rule, people who want to sell their library do not have a customer base and a wealthy clientele, therefore, basing their prices on similar offers from salons and large stores is not always the right step.

In addition to expensive boutiques and exclusive book stores, on simple websites and second-hand book forums, the price of similar lots can differ hundreds of times.

In essence, the price range of the cost of a book can be divided into two parts:

1) objective factors - the condition of the book, the presence or absence of an autograph, dust jacket, stamp, etc.

2) subjective factors - direct buyer-seller relationships, level of knowledge, willingness of one to sell and the other to buy a book for a certain amount.

The most important thing is that the prices that can be seen at the moment are THESE ARE THE PRICES AT WHICH THE BOOK CANNOT FIND ITS BUYER AT THIS MOMENT. All truly profitable offers on good books are quickly purchased and cannot be found on regular open sale.

When selling antiquarian and second-hand books, you should pay attention to the condition and completeness (especially for antique books, since incompleteness greatly reduces the cost of the book). The description and condition criteria are given below again:

1. Ideal - The book has not been opened, the publication does not have any defects or damage, including printing, as well as store seals, stamps, and price indicators. (for example, stamps from the Ozone store). The presence of these features must be reported.

2. Excellent (the book looks like it came from a store) – The book does not have the characteristic crunch of the binding, the book has been opened.

3. Very good - The book has minor flaws that can only be noticed upon careful inspection (small abrasions, underlined lines in pencil, other flaws that will be noticed by a collector).

4. Good – The book has been used, there may be some wear and minor stains.

5. Satisfactory – Severe abrasions, pasted sheets, loss of spines, endpapers or individual pages, as well as pasted pages, etc.)

6. The Bad – The book has major flaws.

Issue related to incompleteness.

- I have one volume from a five-volume edition, and I want to sell the book. A similar publication is bought for 5,000 rubles. If I have one volume, does that mean it costs 1,000 rubles?

Evaluating individual volumes is a very complex matter. Most expensive antique publications in incomplete condition are rarely of interest to collectors, because,

Expensive and short-circulation publications are extremely difficult to collect in separate volumes,

Often, this idea is more expensive,

Finding a missing volume in a collection is usually a costly, lengthy, and sometimes fruitless process.

The price of a set is ALWAYS significantly higher than the cost of its individual components. Sometimes this gap is so radical, get an idea of ​​the price of a single volume

Almost every home has a library - large or just one shelf. Some people keep books that they inherited from their parents or grandparents, from time to time they wipe the dust off the publications, put them back on the shelf and sometimes do not suspect that they are storing a fortune in the closet.

Antiquarian book appraisal

Having a large number of old books in itself does not guarantee that you can get a significant amount for them. Most likely, most of them will only be accepted as a gift or as waste paper. It is best to entrust the assessment of the cost of publications to an expert.

“Do you want to know how much the books you found in your family’s closet are worth? Write to any forum or to any antique online store. Do you want to sell a cabinet of post-war Soviet publications? Take the list to a used bookstore closest to you geographically. Do you need serious professional advice and are willing to pay for it? Want to build a library? Find a second-hand bookseller you trust, just as you trust, for example, your doctor. Go to an antiquarian book fair, read trade magazines, contact a professional organization and choose one of its members. Here, the market for antiquarian books is no different from the market for any other similar services,” recommends the founder of the Biblionne.ru store, Ekaterina Kukhto.

Before contacting a second-hand bookseller for an appraisal, you can try to conduct preliminary “reconnaissance” on the Internet: see if similar books have been put up for sale and what their price is. But experts do not recommend completely trusting online sources. A non-specialist will almost never be able to independently determine the real value of a specimen.

“Unfortunately, the Internet does not provide complete professional information. There you can find books offered at incredible prices. The owners have been trying to sell some of them for years and even decades, and no one buys them. Therefore, of course, searching on the Internet is only a preliminary tool. After this, it is better to turn to professionals, either in a second-hand bookstore or in auction houses. As a rule, it is enough to simply call and say that there is a book, provide the name of the author, title and year of publication. And the expert will already be able to say in advance how interesting it is and approximately how much it might cost,” advises Sergei Burmistrov, general director of the Litfond auction house.

In most home libraries, despite the presence of old books, there is nothing valuable from the point of view of collectors and used book dealers. The age of the publication in itself does not determine the price. Some experts consider publications from the pre-revolutionary period to be antiques, others raise the upper bar until 1945–1950: after that, books began to be published in large editions, however, among them there may be rare ones (which were published or survived in a small number of copies). Sometimes an older book costs less than one published later. The cost here primarily depends not on age, but on rarity.

“Antique books are not as standardized a product as it seems at first glance. The cost of a specific copy of a book is influenced by a large number of factors, including condition, binding, ownership marks, the presence of the author’s autograph, circulation, and so on. However, for each specific instance the importance of this factor is different. The presence of an autograph of a little-known author on a book will not change its price as much as Count Tolstoy’s autograph will change the price of the first edition of War and Peace. Sometimes it is not the autograph that is important, but its recipient. Some authors signed books more often, others less often. A small circulation does not always indicate a high cost of a book, especially since they began to set the circulation size of books by antique standards recently, and only a specialist can tell the circulation size of a pre-revolutionary book,” says Ekaterina Kukhto.

Find a buyer

If, after an assessment, it turns out that the book is really valuable, you can put it up for sale in several ways: on one of the Internet sites (book dealers or private advertisements), through a used bookstore, or at an auction. Each of these methods can be effective, but the fastest and most profitable way, says Sergei Burmistrov, is to put the book up at auction.

“How a second-hand bookstore works: a person brings a book, a merchandiser sits there who evaluates it, sometimes subjectively. If he overprices it too much, it could sit on the shelf for decades and no one will buy it. And if for some reason the book is greatly undervalued, then it will probably be purchased right away, and the owner will lose part of the profit, sometimes serious. An auction is an open market form of trading where supply and demand meet. And even if, say, our merchandiser underestimated a rare book, then at the auction everything will be corrected. It happens that the price of a book rises tenfold. Therefore, for many years now, owners have preferred to put the book up for auction first and “try their luck.” Sometimes what they expect to receive for a book increases several times as a result,” says Sergei Burmistrov.

If for some reason the book does not go under the hammer, you can put it on the shelf of a used bookstore or try a second time to find a buyer through an auction. In the latter case, its estimate (initial cost) is usually reduced by about 20%. There is no entry price threshold for auction sales. Here, says Sergei, there are other selection criteria.

“We take books with a twist. A publication can be really interesting at a cost of either a thousand or 10 million rubles. But for this, something in it must be attractive, associated specifically with this instance. For example, who had it, when. The libraries of famous people and royal libraries contained books that were very inexpensive for today’s market, but at the same time their origin adds a certain value to them,” says Sergei Burmistrov.

Fashion for books

There are few auctions that specialize in antiquarian books in Russia, and most of them are concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg: “Literary Fund”, “House of Antiquarian Books in Nikitsky”, “Antiquarium” in Moscow, “Russian Auction House” in St. Petersburg .

The composition of auction visitors, as their organizers note, is approximately constant. New collectors rarely appear. However, the demand for certain categories of books may change.

“There is a fashion for antiquarian books. And like any fashion, it is changeable, today it can be one thing, tomorrow it can be another. Now - books of the 20th century, a few decades ago - the 19th century, a little earlier - the Silver Age, now they are not interested in them to such an extent. Thirty years ago it was physically impossible to collect books published by Russian emigration, but now it is accessible and popular. Still, I wouldn’t recommend chasing fashion. Collecting books is not collecting valid bank notes; it is much more interesting. Each collector can assemble a library in the form in which it will be interesting to him. And it doesn’t matter that these will be beautifully illustrated publications, books in luxurious bindings, nondescript little books by Russian poets or first editions of books by Russian Nobel Prize winners,” says Ekaterina Kukhto.

Lifetime publications by authors enjoy stable popularity. For example, in September 2015, “The First Lifetime Collected Works of N.V. Gogol” (without “Dead Souls”), published at the beginning of 1843, was sold at auction for 1.2 million rubles. And “Poems and Stories of Alexander Pushkin” (The first collection of all poems written by A.S. Pushkin, published in 1835) in September 2014 with an estimate of 800 - 900 thousand rubles. went for 1.5 million rubles.

The peculiarity of the antiquarian book market is that the quantity of goods practically does not grow over time, but the price steadily increases. A notebook with the first edition of “Eugene Onegin” accidentally found in a grandmother’s closet can bring quick money, or it can become a carefully kept investment or even the beginning of a real collection of antique books.