How To Estimated a Book's Age: Part 1. An Antique Books Guide

It is a useful skill to be able to guess the age of a book from it covers.

If you are searching for books (online or in shops) then to be able to estimated how old a book is just from the covers can save a lot of time and wasted energy.

This is the first part of a longer guide which will show you through the covers, the title page and other features how to estimate the age of a book with reasonable accuracy.

The covers are the most obvious way to tell a book's age and will be seen first.

Some can be tricky as they might not be conventional in style but generally they will follow patterns set by each era.

Below are a range of books from various eras with description for each - hopefully you will learn a bit more about the type of designs to look for in each age group.

Modern (1970+)

Modern books are usually identifiable for their clean, white pages but the covers too can tell us if a book is modern. This age group is most obvious as modern books are worlds apart from older ones.

Paperbacks will generally be clean and shiny, sometimes using gold foil to give a touch of style.

hardbacks will invariably have dust-jackets which will often be shiny.

Faux-Antique

Even during modern times publishers are still replicating antique style with books such as the famous Guild Publishing editions (one copy seen below).

An easy way to tell the age of such books is by looking at the page edges which will be far cleaner and neater than real antique books.

Vintage (1930-1970)

This era is quite broad and can be a little harder to guess accurately.

In this age group expect to see few hardcovers with decoration and many with plain covers that came originally with dust-jackets. If dust-jackets are still present they will often be in poor shape and made of flimsy, cheap paper.

Paperbacks will be thin and cheap.

Antique/ True Vintage 1900-1930

This is the era where books begin to get valuable, decorative and classified as antique.
Expect cases of high decoration, gilding to page edges and art-deco styling - look out for bold patterns and vertical lines used as decoration.
Some books can still be plain however, and thus difficult to discern from 1950's or later hardbacks.

Paperbacks are rare in this era and will almost certainly be in poor shape due to the weak binding.

Classic art-deco designs:

Some books will have plainer covers 

The pictorial plate to the front cover is common with this era

Some will begin to look close to late Victorian books in decorative style if they are sub 1910

 Victorian/ True Antique (1870-1900)

This era is where books become genuine antiques.

Despite this you can expect to see some of the boldest cover designs published.

Fine binding is popular in this era and looks very different to standard books due to the leather (or leather effect) binding and higher publication values:

The traditional designs of late Victorian books feature lots of gold, strong fonts and highly decorative covers

 Not all books of this era were decorative however and these can be hard to estimate in terms of age as they may look alike to 1930's or later hardbacks:

Early Victorian (1840-1860)

This era is quite unique as books are generally subtly decorated, without the elaborate embellishment of late Victorian books. Some will feature gilded designs but these will lack the colour and illustration of later publications.

Early antique 1800-1850

This era will start to show its age. Covers are often dark and un-decorated unless they are marbled in which case the same marbled effect will feature on the covers, page edges and front/ endpapers.
Leather binding features heavily in this era too.

 High Antique - Ancient (1800-)

 These books will almost always be bound in leather, calf or vellum and feature very little decoration.
Some books may be re-bound and so look newer than they are but the pages will give away the age.
Covers may be loose or detached and the overall impression of these era books will be of extreme age.
Generally look for damaged and marked leather (brown generally) covers.

Mid 1700's

 Early 1600's 

And that concludes Part 1 of the 'How to estimate the age of books' guide!

I hope it has been helpful or at least a little informative and please share, +1 or comment.

An Antique Books Guide - Adding Value To Your Collection

As a book collector myself I have learnt a few tips and rules of collecting that can help add value to a collection and so I thought I should write a post about it.

If you are to collect books then you should make an attempt to make your collection as valuable as possible.

1. Create topics within your collection

Key to any book collection is the idea of topic collecting.

For example, you will no doubt have a few books all focused upon one author or one topic that interests you.

Try to get valuable editions of these where possible.

Take the James Bond books for example. The cheaper 'Book Club' editions are reasonably easy to buy but the rare books published by 'Jonathan Cape' are harder to come by.

Try to build your collection slowly but surely and when possible upgrade the cheaper books to earlier or rarer editions.

I would also suggest you start a section of your collection (maybe one shelf of a bookcase) that focuses on classic/ famous books such as Alice in Wonderland, Ulysses or the Wind in the Willows.

By having books that rarely lose value and often gain value you will be adding a core to your collection in terms of value.

If you ever need to sell any of your books then these classic can go first but they will invariably help add strength to your collection. Later in this post I will show how to further add value to your collection by upgrading these books.

Next I would suggest a decorative section purely for aesthetic appeal. You can turn your book case or book collection into a talking point with decorative, pretty books or impressive leather bound ones.

2. Single title collections

Some collectors will go after a certain title and try to collect as many editions of that title as possible.

This is generally cheaper than collecting a range of titles and allows you to focus upon a single work.

If you have a particular favourite book then this is a wise move as you are bound to build a valuable collection if you can get a range of copies of one title.

Look for hard back editions with dustjackets where applicable for higher value than paperback equivalents.

3. Make a set

Having a set of books is something that can be a valuable collective item if you ever need to sell.

Take, for example, Milne's famous four books.

I would suggest rather than buying the set complete from someone else you should instead try to build your own.

This may take time but by the end you will have almost certainly saved money.

Look on eBay and Abebooks.co.uk at regular intervals for the books you require and book by book build your set.

4. Upgrade Your Books

Once you have your desired books you can start with upgrading certain copies.

For example, consider the set above, of Milne's four iconic books.

Now unless you are willing to spend close high hundreds for your set then you will most likely have later impressions rather than first editions.

If you happen to have a fifth edition of When We Were Very Young' then at some later point you could procure a third edition of the same book and sell your old, later edition.

By slowly upgrading your books into better editions you will end up with a more valuable collection without a large initial cost.

Tolkien's 'Smith of Wootton Major' below is shown simply to illustrate the fact that there are different editions for nearly all books printed and by slowly upgrading your books you can also add value to your collection.

                                                            5. Add signed memorabilia

Another sure fire way to add value to your collection is to add signed items to it.

If you can't get a signed book then go for letters, postcards or even envelopes.

These will invariably be cheaper than a signed book but can still add considerable value to a book as a package.

If you have a signature from a well known author already then try to buy a valuable, early (or First if possible) edition of their most famous book.

That way if you ever need to sell, the combination of autograph and valuable book ensures your collection is high in value.

Thanks for reading - I hope this post has helped you in some way.

If you need any advice please feel free to contact me.

As always a comment, share or +1 is always appreciated!