The value of a rare book is a guess dressed up as a number. It changes with the market, the condition, the provenance, and the mood of the person being asked. Shelvd tracks these guesses over time.
Valuation Sources
Each valuation entry in Shelvd specifies a source — where the estimate came from:
| Option | Use when |
|---|---|
| Self Estimate | Your own assessment based on experience, comparables, or intuition. |
| Professional Appraisal | A formal valuation by a certified appraiser or recognized specialist. |
| Auction Result | An actual hammer price or sale result. |
| Dealer Quote | What a dealer offered, quoted, or asked. |
| Insurance Valuation | The insured value, often higher than market value. |
| Market Research | Based on checking prices on AbeBooks, Rare Book Hub, viaLibri, auction archives, or comparable records. |
| Purchase | The price you actually paid, auto-created from provenance entries with a price. |
Adding Valuations
On the Edit page, scroll to the Valuation History section. Each entry includes:
- Date — when the valuation was made
- Amount — the estimated value
- Currency — which currency the value is expressed in
- Source — one of the seven types above
- Notes — context: "Based on Sotheby's sale of comparable copy, lot 156, Nov 2024"
Dated Source Timeline
When a book has dated valuations, Shelvd displays them as a source timeline on the detail page. This keeps appraisals, auction results, dealer quotes, insurance values, market research, and purchase prices readable without pretending a handful of estimates forms a clean market trend.
Provenance Auto-Sync
When you add a provenance entry with a price paid, Shelvd automatically creates a corresponding valuation history entry with source "provenance_purchase." This means your acquisition price is always part of the valuation timeline.
Gain/Loss
The book detail page shows a gain/loss calculation: what you paid (acquired cost) versus the most recent valuation. "Bought €500 → Estimated €750 (+50%)" appears in green. "Bought €500 → Estimated €300 (−40%)" appears in red. Both are truths you should know.
The Stats Connection
The Statistics dashboard aggregates valuation data across your library: total acquired cost, total estimated value, unrealized gain/loss. All amounts are converted to your display currency using daily ECB exchange rates.
A Note on Honesty
Valuation is not an exact science. A book is worth what someone will pay for it, and nobody knows what that is until the moment of sale. Record your best estimates, update them when new information arrives, and resist the temptation to round up. Your catalog is a tool for truth, not a comfort blanket.
📖 Related on the blog: Cataloging for Insurance, The Auction Room