How to get books valued

[Merrow]

I've been given some old books that once were in an antique shop that my gran worked in. The logic for them coming to me to get valued is that I did an English degree, but that provides no practical help in this instance! I can see things online about ISBN numbers, but the newest book was published in 1926 so that's not particularly helpful. Does anyone know where I'd even start? I imagined taking them into a shop, but the antiquarian bookshops I've found seem to talk about valuing libraries rather than 4 odd books.

A friendly second hand book dealer will value them for you or take them along to your local auction house. You could also look on Abebooks or Ebay to get an idea of the value. However, I’m sorry to say that being old doesn’t always equate to being valuable.

Thank you! To be honest I'm fully expecting them not to be valuable, much of the "gold" jewellery from the same shop turned out to be fake, but there's enough family interest in whether my gran (who was so thrifty she used her free bus pass to travel an hour to get her milk 3p cheaper) had secret valuables that my suggestion of donating to Oxfam was shot down.

I'd look them up on eBay and filter by sold listings and ABE books like suggested before to give you a rough idea if they're valuable.

Auction houses do free valuations if you find one that deals in books.