I’m not really looking for answers rather than comments or cheerleading.
My situation: I have a collection of 750 children’s books that have pub dates from 1880 to 1998. They are, specifically, illustrated books in the fantasy genre. Most of the collection, 80%, are modern picture books. These are skinny and dont take up much space.This is my art collection, I collect these for the illustrations.
Anyway—I am finally ready to let them go.
The 80% of imprints between 1978 and 1998—I dont expect to sell this group necessarily. I wonder if there is enough of a market to donate them to one of three antiquarian/collectible booksellers near to me? Or, should I just drop them off at one of my region’s big general booksales?
The 20% that are old and more rare—I may try to get $ for these.
But also in the mix here is that I am skimming 100 volumes of the entire collection off to keep permanently. These are my favorites. These are not necessarily the very old ones, I have favorites from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.
So I welcome comments about the collectible illustrated children’s book market and anynother comments. I stop collecting about the year 2005 so I no longer monitor what’s going on in that market, but I assume the market has plunged like with most antiques.