Collecting Childrens Picturebooks

Background

Similar to a couple of years ago, we recently performed an internet search for the first editions of the first twenty Caldecott Medal books, wondering how many are currently being offered for sale. The searches were performed across multiple book sites, ABE, ABAA, and Bookfinder, and were filtered for first edition books with dust jackets.

Across the twenty Medal winning books, there are thirty-five first edition books currently for sale, with an average asking price of $822. In our survey we did not adjust the asking price to the condition of the book being offered, so the average price should be used judiciously.

Six Books Found

There were six copies of the 1954 Caldecott Medal winner Madeline's Rescue on the market, the highest quantity for sale across the respective sample set. The average asking price is a healthy $748, indicative of the high desirability of this second book in the iconic Ludwig Bemelmans' series. Madeline the first book in the series, was published in 1939 and earned a Caldecott Honor award (there is only one first edition copy currently on the market, offered for $4000). Madeline is a 'tough get' in first edition with dust jacket.

Some Other Books Found

The Little Island, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, is another tough find, in part due to authorship by Margaret Wise Brown, under the pseudonym 'Golden Macdonald'. Books authored by Brown have an avid collectible following, with The Little Island being the eighth book she wrote under the Macdonald pseudonym. Brown wrote her ninth, and last book as 'Golden Macdonald' some ten years later, in 1956, Whistle For The Train. While Weisgard illustrated hundreds of children's books, his work in The Little Island earned his only Caldecott Medal.

There was one copy of Frog Went A-Courtin, on the market offered for $1250. Illustrated by Feodar Rojankovsky and written by John Langstaff, Frog Went A-Courtin is the first of two books by the pair, who colloborated on Over In The Meadow in 1957.

Six Books Not Found

Six of the twenty books are not currently being offered for sale on the internet. Understandably it would be a seller's market for any of these books in first edition format with dust jacket. As was expected, Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House and Robert McCloskey’s Make Way For Ducklings are not currently available. First editions in dust jacket for either book do not surface for sale very often. Since 2000, we have seen only one first edition copy of The Little House for sale (Sigh…regrets abound), and one copy of Make Way For Ducklings for sale.

Similar to when we performed this survey two years ago, there are no first edition copies of White Snow, Bright Snow, Cinderella, and Finders Keepers, currently for sale in the market. These three books are not as scarce as The Little House or Make Way For Ducklings so one would think the demand would eventually cause first edition copies to surface. It is somewhat surprising to see no first edition copies of The Egg Tree on the market. Katherine Milhous' Easter homage to her Pennsylvania Quaker heritage is not too scarce.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:09 AM | Permalink

Dr. Seuss and the Beginner Books

Up until the mid-1950s, there was a degree of separation between illustrated educational books and illustrated picturebooks. That all changed, dramatically and with much national fanfare, with the 1957 publication of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat In The Hat (Random House). Here was an early reader, full of 220 madly rhyming words, which made its way into our elementary school classrooms.

The Cat In The Hat is a tremendously important book. Not just an important picturebook or an important children’s book, but an important book without any qualifiers! The publication of the book in 1957 forever changed the way in which children would learn to read and be educated. Reading COULD be fun!

The following table is an excerpt from the Children's Picturebook Price Guide. The estimated values are for first edition books, with dust jackets. The Children's Picturebook Price Guide explains in understandable terms the methods to correctly identify first edition Dr. Seuss books.

The Beginning of Beginner Books

The Cat In The Hat was published by Random House. However because of it’s success, an independent publishing company was formed, called Beginner Books. Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was the president and editor.

Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. The second book in the series was nearly as popular, The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, published in 1958.

Springing from this series of beginning readers were such standards as A Fly Went By (1958), Sam and the Firefly (1958), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Go, Dog. Go! (1961), Hop On Pop (1963), and Fox in Socks (1965), each a monument in the picturebook industry, and also significant in the historical development of early readers. All are still in print and remain very popular over forty years after their initial publication.

Creators in the Beginner Book series were such luminaries as Jan & Stan Berenstain, P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Helen Palmer (Mr. Geisel’s wife). The Beginner Books dominated the children’s picturebook market of the 1960’s, and still plays a significant role today within the phases of students’ reading development.

Before The Cat

Prior to the publication of his first children’s book in 1937, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (Vanguard Press, 1937)), Theodor Seuss Geisel was a prominent and successful humorist illustrator for such magazines as Judge and Life.

By the time of The Cat In The Hat's publication, Dr. Seuss was a very successful children’s book illustrator, having published twelve children’s books, three of which had won Caldecott Honor awards. Actually, prior to the publication of The Cat In The Hat, one could easily say that Dr. Seuss had already had two successful illustration careers, one as a humorist and one as a picturebook creator.

John Hersey and Dr. Seuss

Mr. Geisel created The Cat In The Hat in reaction to a Life Magazine article by Pulitzer Prize winning author John Hersey, published in the May 24, 1954 issue, titled “Why Do Students Bog Down On First R? A LOCAL COMMITTEE SHEDS LIGHT ON A NATIONAL PROBLEM: READING.” In the article, Hersey was critical of the then current state of school primers,

In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. [Existing primers] feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls.” “In bookstores, anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.

Hersey’s arguments were enumerated in some ten pages of Life Magazine, which was the leading periodical of its time. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma with student’s reading, toward the end of the article, Hersey redundantly asked:

Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate—drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, “Dr. Seuss,” Walt Disney?

Geisel responded to this “challenge” by rigidly limiting himself to a small set of words from an elementary school vocabulary list, then crafted a story based upon two randomly selected words—cat and hat. The results of this personal challenge are nothing short of amazing!

After The Cat

Successful before the publication of the The Cat In The Hat, after it’s publication, Dr. Seuss became an ‘overnight’ national phenomenon.

After the publication of The Cat In The Hat, numerous feature articles were published in Life, Look and other prominent periodicals. The book’s characters, along with other Seuss creations, were extended into toys and other products, occurring long before co-merchandising and line extensions became commonplace for children’s character marketing.

Values for the First Fifty Beginner Books

The values in the following table are for first edition books, with dust jackets. In most cases, the first edition book cannot be properly identified without the dust jacket.

Collecting First Edition Beginner Books

First printings of the each of Beginner Books published from 1957-to-1973 should be considered by children's book collectors. Many collectors are on the lookout for the Dr. Seuss books, however there has not been as keen an interest in the non-Seuss Beginner Books. The non-Seuss books are relatively inexpensive in the market place, however locating first printings is difficult. Part of the difficulty is due to the uncertainty in the industry in identifying true first printings of the early Beginner Books. We are in the process of publishing identification information on our website, which will help to rectify this ongoing issue.

In 2001 Publisher's Weekly created their lists of the All-Time Bestselling Children's Books, for both hardcover and paperback books. We consider copies sold one of the key factors in the collectibility of a children's book (when the initial printing is low relative to the eventual copies sold). Twenty of the Beginner Books made the list, with eleven in the All-Time Bestselling top 50. Several of the Beginner Books are from the 'Bright and Early' sub-series which was started in 1967.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Seuss books dominate the list, although all of the first printings are desirable. Some of the non-Seuss first printings are very difficult to come by, especially Are You My Mother?, Go, Dog, Go! and Put Me In The Zoo, each of which have out sold many of the Dr. Seuss books. You should also be on the lookout for first printings of a A Fly Went By and Book of Riddles.

The first twelve Beginner Books were published between 1957-to-1959 and should be on your 'watch for' list. First editions are easily identifiable, as all but Cat In The Hat state 'First Printing' on the copyright page. We've documented first edition identification points for Cat In The Hat on our blog.

Another key book in the series is Helen Palmer's A Fish Out of Water, illustrated by P.D. Eastman. Palmer was Geisel's wife, and wrote several of the early Beginner Books. However we think Dr.Seuss should be given co-authorship as we wrote in an article A Story Of Two Fish: Dr. Seuss Out Of Water, comparing A Fish Out Of Water to Seuss's Gustav The Goldfish.

Identifying First Edition Beginner Books

Within the hobby, to our knowledge, a method for identifying first printings of Beginner Books has not yet been published. Soon we hope to resolve this absence.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 02:45 PM | Permalink

We started a thread on the eBay Bookseller's Forum to identify higher value children's books sold on eBay, with $300 being the 'bottom' threshold. The thread can be found here: Valuable Children's Books Sold on eBay. The thread covers a broad range of children's books, from a $12,000 Hardy Boys first edition book to a $400 pop-up book.

If you do not want to take the time to page through the thread on the eBay Booksellers Forum, you can download a PDF of the thread from our website.

Prices realized on eBay auctions tend to be closer to wholesale than retail, so perhaps 30%-50% below a 'book store' price. Often first edition books sell at eBay auctions which do not surface regularly in the regular book market (ABE , Alibris, Amazon, Bookfinder, live auctions, etc...), therefore it's difficult to make an analogy from an 'eBay price' to 'market value'.

Many booksellers and book collectors do not seriously consider eBay a venue for collectible books. On the other hand, many do. We know of several ABAA booksellers who source some of their inventory from eBay auctions, including some of the premier childrens booksellers in the country.

We have been active book buyers on eBay for over a decade, and have purchased 100's of first edition childrens books, often at very good prices relative to the market. In addition, the knowledge we have gained is invaluable through the thousands of collective hours searching and investigating possible first edition books. We do have a fair idea of the frequency with which certain first edition books surface on eBay, providing a barometer for the book's scarcity.

eBay Booksellers Forum

The Booksellers Forum on eBay is one of the better learning centers for experienced and new booksellers, and contains valuable information for book collectors. The non-moderated forum does have its share of political and various ranting threads, but the concentrated book related information is unmatched on the internet. Some helpful threads:

• Helpful Links For The Bookseller
• Library links once again from the top
• Terminology, Identifying, Dating and Grading Books...
• Bibliography Thread

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 08:52 AM | Permalink

A first edition copy of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal winning book, A Wrinkle In Time, recently sold at a PBA Galleries' auction for $10,800.

Heading:                     

Author:                         L'Engle, Madeleine

Title:                            A Wrinkle In Time

Place:                           [New York]

Publisher:                     Ariel Books/Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

Date:                            [1962]

Item # :                        195185

Description:

[10], 211 pp. (8vo) cloth-backed boards, dust jacket. First Edition.

First Edition of of the 1963 Newberry Medal winner, the 1965 Sequoyah Book Award, and the 1965 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. The first in the author's series of novels for children of the Murry and O'Keefe families. Extremely rare in the first edition, According to ABPC no copies have appeared at auction in more than 15 years.

Condition:

Very minor wear to jacket, primarily at spine ends, light browning to jacket edges and folds, small stain at foot of rear jacket panel; light wear to cloth at spine ends, faint stain on rear board corresponding with stain on jacket; small spot of foxing on front free endpaper; overall near fine in a like jacket.

Sale Number                             386

Lot Number                              60

Sale Name                                 

Illustrated Books – Fine Printing – Books in All Fields

Sale Date                                  08/21/2008

Price realized                           $ 10800

 

Click here to see the PBA Galleries auction page.

First edition copies of A Wrinkle In Time are difficult to find. This is the highest price we know of for a first edition Newbery Medal book. Since the book was bought by Aleph-Bet, a prominent children's bookseller, one would assume the retail asking price will be higher than the auction purchase price.

First edition Newbery Medal books are very collectible since the award winning books tend to stay in print for decades and a acquire a large public following over the years. The Newbery books are approved for most school curricula, and middle school teachers and librarians often develop a passion for them.

Currently, the first edition Newbery Medal winning books do not have as high a market value as first edition Caldecott Medal books and are much more affordable. 

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 10:50 AM | Permalink

How Collectible Books Are Priced

The current method of pricing collectible books for sale is more a learned art than a science. The world of collectible books is quite large and very diverse. Everything from modern first editions to pre-1500 incunabula are sold and collected. Because of the diversity among collectible types, one pricing methodology does not work for all.

Auction Records

For books worth over $1000, auction records are a beginning point for collectors and booksellers. Book auction records go back for over a century, and serious collectors, and sellers of serious works, have access to such. The auction records will provide a reference point, from which years of experience will allow the bookseller to extrapolate to present day value. (A lot said in the last sentence – it is beyond the scope of this article to outline the complexity of pricing antiquarian books which rely on auction records as the primary means of valuation.)

The vast majority of collectible books sold have never fallen under the gavel of a reputable auction house. Why? In general, it’s not economical for the buyer, seller, or auction house to sell $50 books. Medium priced books cannot support the overhead costs necessary to catalog and sell the book at auction.

Internet Records & Catalogs

Instead, booksellers will poll the internet sources for comparable books, then leverage their experience to set the asking price. Often, the experienced bookseller will have accumulated a library of bookseller catalogs over the years to use as additional reference.

For books not offered for sale on the internet or in a catalog, the bookseller will try to find books of comparable stature (authorship, year, condition, etc…), then use their experience to set the asking price.

Book Pricing in Today’s Collectible Children’s Market

In many cases, the children’s bookseller will rely on their own experiences to set an asking price on a first edition collectible book. They have either sold the book in the past or have been witness to a similar book being offered for sale. In most cases, the bookseller does not have past experience with a book.

Aleph-Bet and Jo-Ann Reisler are the two booksellers considered by many to be the backbone for pricing collectible children’s books in today’s market. Page Books, Garcia-Garst, Peter Harrington, Charles Agvent, David Brass, E.M. Maurice, are among a group of other reputable children’s booksellers.

When a bookseller references a first edition book being offered by one of the prestige children’s booksellers, they will often adjust their asking price for a similar book, taking into consideration the market in which they operate.

In today’s bookselling market on the internet, there is more garbage than jewels being offered for sale. What might be described as a first edition is often not the case. The internet can be treacherous grounds for the inexperenced book collector and for the inexperienced bookseller.

When looking up a book, the bookseller has to wade through a lot of material, which clouds the picture, in order to find legitimate offerings. It’s easier said than done.

The bookseller’s experience accounts for everything when determining the asking price for a collectible first edition book. Pricing the book is much more an art than a science.

Pricing Books for the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide

We had to price 23,000 books for the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide. Less than 200 of the books would have a viable auction record, of which, less than 100 were current.

Over the course of a year, we used the methodology outlined above to price 10,000 or so books, using catalogs and internet searches. Most of the books in the price guide were not being offered for sale, and there were no catalog records. We had to extrapolate the market value.

Could we mathematically calculate the price of a collectible first edition children’s book? Sounds far-fetched, but an intriguing idea. What might be some parameters?

The age of the book or year of publication quickly comes to mind. What else helps to determine the market price of a first edition book? What does the bookseller think through when valuing a book? Scarcity? Yes, scarcity would be a key consideration.

What else?

For children’s picturebooks, it would be a combination of elements. Key would be who is the illustrator, with a close second being who is the author. Awards garnered by the book, it’s illustrator or author would also be a big factor. Popularity of the book, defined as being a combination of years in print, copies sold, and cross-over into pop culture. All of these factors affect the demand for a first edition book. Let’s call this the ‘collectibility’ of the book.

Some premises:

Common 1953 book       <less valuable<        Less common 1953 book

Common 1953 book       <less valuable<        Common, more desirable 1953 book

Common 1953 book       <less valuable<        Common 1943 book

Prices Reflecting The Market

We attempted to make the prices in our guide reflective of the market. With a database of 23,000 titles concentrated into a narrow field, we thought we could create a formula to calculate a first edition picturebook's value.

We researched the price of over 10,000 books and inserted this market price into the database. The objective of the formula was to minimize the total error of the calculated price versus the researched market value across this population of 10,000 books. By minimizing the total error, the formulaic value of the other 13,000 books should be mathmatically accurate.

Age, Scarcity, & Collectibility

The formula has three key components, one based upon age, one based upon scarcity, and one based upon collectibility of the book. We fixed the books’ condition as a constant.

The thought behind the age factor is, all other things being equal (i.e. scarcity & collectibility are the same), an older book has more market value than a newer book.

You can see this play out in any of the illustrator listings in the price guide. For example, an older first edition Louis Slobodkin book has more market value than a newer first edition Louis Slobodkin book, all other things being equal.

For each of the 23,000 books, we seeded the database with a mid-range scarcity & collectibility factor. Then we adjusted each illustrator's collectibility factor. Then we adjusted each book's collectibility factor. This was tedious, and wrought with passionate discussion about minutae. Then repeat. Then repeat. 23,000 titles. Then we did the same process for the scarcity factor. Our objective was to minimize the calculated price as compared to the current market price.

Each book's collectibility factor was impacted by the illustrator, awards garnered, author, illustrator/author's first book, first authored book by an illustrator, etc…. Obviously, the 'normal' first edition Dr. Seuss or Maurice Sendak book would have more collectibility than the 'normal' Michael Hague book. Picturebooks authored by Margeret Wise Brown or Jane Yolen, and other desirable authors consistently increased the collectibility factor of a book. An illustrator's franchise books impacted the collectibility. Books in a series increased the collectibility. And so forth.

Adjusting the Formula

For months we tried a polynomial type formula, but the formula did not react to our satisfaction. So we tried an exponential type formula, where the collectibility variable and the scarcity variable were raised to a fractional power. This seemed to work better. We fiddled and fiddled with the fractional powers until the total error against the 10,000 market values we researched was minimized. We spent nine months working on the formula.

So, the end result is, every price you see in our price guide is calculated by a formula. We kid you not. (The published prices are rounded to whole dollar amounts).

Obviously this method could not work for a general collection of books. It only applies because our database is confined to such a narrow field. Obviously there are going to be some errors (for example, we did not increase a book's collectibility factor appropriately due to the oversight of a well collected author). Obviously we need to make adjustments to Curious George and The Little House, Make Way For Ducklings, and so forth. The nice thing is, adjustments across the 23,000 titles is now relatively painless.

We are in the process of researching 10,000+ market prices for the next edition of the price guide. It's tedious, but needs to be done. Then we will comb through the database again and again and again. And again, until the calculated price is representative of the market price.

Using this methodology, we believe the price guide prices are more science than art, and more representative of an illustrator’s market value than a rule-of-thumb estimate.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 08:05 AM | Permalink

A New 'Most Valuable Children's Picturebook'

Previous to the July 2007 PBA Galleries auction, we had listed Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, the 1964 Caldecott Medal winning book, as the most valuable picturebook in the The Children's Picturebook Price Guide. At the PBA auction, a copy of Where The Wild Things Are sold for a respectable $6,900. See here for actual auction description and results.

On the same day, at the same auction, the first edition Curious George sold for $21,850, and a first edition The LIttle House, the 1943 Caldecott Medal winning book, sold for $9,775.

In our Children's Picturebook Price Guide we listed the first edition Where The Wild Things Are as the most valuable picturebook. Obviously, this is no longer true. We now consider Curious George the most valuable children's picturebook.

Even though The Little House sold for nearly $10,000, we do not consider it to be the most valuable Caldecott Medal winning book. Instead, we think Robert McCloskey's Make Way For Ducklings, the 1942 Caldecott Medal book, would be the most valuable Caldecott, followed by Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House. The first edition Where The Wild Things Are would be the third most valuable Caldecott Medal book, and the fourth most valuable children's picturebook.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 08:01 AM | Permalink

The following table lists the second fifty illustrators in the Children's Picturebook Price Guide with the highest average book value. The value would be for first edition books, with dust jackets. The table also includes the number of books listed in the price guide for each illustrator.

Kurt Wiese, the most prolific illustrator in the CPPG with 280 books, tops the list of the second fifty with an average book price of $139. Wiese's books are an eclectic mixture, from the 1933 Newbery Medal winning Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze, to the 1935 classic picturebook Honk The Moose, to the Freddie the Pig series of books authored by Walter Brooks. His illustrations also grace the first American edition of Felix Salten's Bambi, published in 1928. During his prolific career, Wiese only won one Caldecott award, an Honor in 1946 for You Can Write Chinese.

Mary Grandpré (#65) is better known for illustrating the US dust jackets for J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. Similarlay, Brett Helquist's (#77) illustrations are most familiar due to his work on Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events books.

Children love Louis Slobodkin's illustrations, which have a classic whimsical feel to them and a simple line structure. Slobidkin's illustrations accompany four of Eleanor Estes' Newbery award books, including the 1952 Medal winning Ginger Pye. Slobodkin won the 1944 Caldecott Medal for Many Moons.

We will leave the remainder of the analysis and commentary to the reader. Children's picturebook collectors should be familiar with most illustrators on the list; if not, then a bit of homework via Google or Wikipedia will provide some base level information.

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The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following table lists fifty illustrators in the Children's Picturebook Price Guide with the highest average book value. The value would be for first edition books, with dust jackets. The table also includes the number of books listed in the price guide for each illustrator.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Seuss heads the list, with an average value of $1183 for the 53 books listed in the price guide. We did not include the books he authored under the pseudonym Theo LeSieg, which were all illustrated by others. If you should stumble upon a first edition Green Eggs And Ham at your local Friends of the Library sale, then consider adding it to your purchase stack.

The top seven illustrators in the list are pretty much as expected, however Thomas Handforth at number eight is a bit surprising. Handforth only has five books listed, and one of them, Mei Li, the 1939 Caldecott Medal book, is valued at $1600, thereby increasing the average of the small lot of books. A similar aberration is for Nancy Elkholm Burkett, who did the illustrations for Raold Dahl's James And The Giant Peach, a book which sells for over $3000 in today's market.

We will leave the remainder of the analysis and commentary to the reader. Children's picturebook collectors should be familiar with most illustrators on the list; if not, then a bit of homework via Google or Wikipedia will provide some base level information.

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even with this disparity, there are areas of interest for every pocket book. With this in mind, we wanted to offer some thoughts on various dollar-value levels for collectible picturebooks.

The Book Collector's Mantra - Learn, Learn, Learn!

Ours is a growing hobby. As such, there are many unexplored nooks and crannies within the picturebook hobby. Find them. Learn, learn, learn, then find them. Astute early adopters often benefit in the long run. The key is to understand the factors impacting a book’s collectibility and subsequent value, and being insightful enough to benefit. The benefit is buying a collectible book in the present for less then it would cost in the future.

The Bookseller's Perspective

Booksellers cannot afford to have a long-term perspective when deciding to purchase this or that book. They buy books at wholesale or less, then sell them quickly to turn a profit. The business model strongly favors turnover of their book inventory. This works to the advantage of the astute book collector.

Most booksellers are generalists, or specialists in other areas of the vast book collecting spectrum. There are only a handful of children’s bookselling specialists, and in most cases specialize in older antiquarian materials. Because of this, the astute hobbyist can often find contemporary ‘bargains’ in used and collectible bookstores.

Important Caveat

Collect books that you enjoy. Enjoy the books you collect.

The lists that follow tend toward traditionalist children’s picturebook collecting, and should be used as guides to develop your own collecting interests.

The intention is to help you spend less for books of your interest.

Presumptions 

The following lists are for first edition hardcover picturebooks, with dust jacket.

• Learn to identify first edition books by key children’s book publishers (it’s not too difficult)! For the beginning collector, CLICK HERE.
• Books without dust jacket (when originally issued with one) are worth only a fraction of the book with dust jacket.
• Paperback versions have little collectibility or value.

Level 1: Up to $20

1. Caldecott Medal books, 2000 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1990 to present.
3. Geisel Medal books, 2006 & 2007.
4. Modern Caldecott award winning illustrators, such as books by Tony Diterlizzi, Kevin Henkes, Kadir Nelson, Chris Raschka, Eric Rohmann, David Small, and Mo Willems.
5. Contemporary illustrators, 1990 to present, such as books by Felicia Bond, Kay Chorao, Steven Kellogg, Michael Hague, Tomie de Paola, Mercer Mayer, and Cindy Szekeres.
6. Contemporary pop culture franchise books, including Little Critter, Arthur, Berenstain Bear, Magic School Bus, Olivia, and Toot & Puddle books.

A common strategy is to collect books which stay in print for decades, perhaps never going out of print ('never' is a long time, so please consider it in context). The idea is the longer the book is in print, the more children enjoy and read it, thereby increasing the interest in the first edition copy. Eventually. If only those five year olds would hurry up and become forty. 

Level 2: Up to $50

1. Caldecott Medal books, 1995 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1980 to present.
3. Harper & Row, ’I Can Read’ series books, 1970 to present.
4. Illustrators, 1970 to present, such as books by Leo & Diane Dillon, Richard Egielski, Stephen Gammell, Trina Schart Hyman, Leo Lionni, Jerry Pinkney, Richard Scarry, Peter Spier, Tomi Ungerer, David Wiesner, Ed Young, and Paul Zelinsky.

Level 3: Up to $100

1. Caldecott Medal books, 1990 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1970 to present.
3. Beginner Books, 1960 to present.
4. Harper & Row, ‘I Can Read’ series books, 1957 to present, especially the early Syd Hoff books, and the affordable Maurice Sendak Little Bear books.
5. Illustrators, 1960 to present, including Raymond Briggs, Marcia Brown, Ed Emberley, the Haders, Nonny Hogrogian, Hilary Knight (non-Eloise), Leo Lionni, the Petershams, Shel Silverstein, William Steig, Leonard Weisgard, and Taro Yashima.

Level 4: Up to $200

1. Selected Dr. Seuss books - from eBay only - including The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, The Sleep Book, Sollew Sollew, Hop On Pop, Lorax, One Fish/Two Fish, and Yertle the Turtle. First editions can be found on eBay, however are considerably more expensive from other bookselling sites.
2. Caldecott Medal books, 1980 to present.
3. Caldecott Honor books, 1960 to present.
4. Classic illustrators, 1950 to present, including Roger Duvoisin, Ingri & d’Aulaire, Feodor Rojankovsky, Leo Politi, Louis Slobodkin, Gustaf Tenggren, and Kurt Wiese.
5. Selected franchise books, including Happy Lion, Petunia, Little Golden Books (with dust jackets!),  

Level 5: Up to $500

1. Caldecott Medal books, 1950 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1938 to present (except Madeline, which would be much more expensive).
3. Key franchise books, including Angus, Babar, Curious George, Eloise, Madeline, Harold/Purple Crayon, and the Smalls books (Lenski).
4. Foundation illustrators, 1930 to present, including Marjorie Flack, Wanda Gag, Robert Lawson, Lois Lenski, Robert McCloskey, and Tasha Tudor.
5. Selected Maurice Sendaks books.

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This list is dominated by the Caldecott Medal award books, headed by David Wiesner’s Tuesday.  Tuesday is becoming moderately difficult to find, and Wiesner’s regard within the market place has been enhanced by winning a third Caldecott Medal with Flotsam.  Wiesner has also won two Caldecott Honor awards.  In our opinion, David Wiesner’s wordless books are the best that have been crafted. As an aside, Wiesner also illustrated E.T., The Storybook, published in 1982, which is 97th on the Publisher’s Weekly list of bestselling children’s books.

The collectibility of William Steig’s Shrek! has obviously been enhanced by the enormous popularity of the three animated feature films (it should be noted that the book was issued without a dust jacket), and is the second most valuable picturebook published in the 1990’s.

Snowflake Bentley, Seven Blind Mice, and Rainbow Fish are probably the three most difficult books on the list to find in a first edition state, so should have some potential future appreciation.  Smoky Night, and Officer Buckle and Glory are becoming less common.

From Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings. Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published, and line extensions have been made into other consumer product areas (i.e. toys, games, dolls, costumes, decorations, etc…). Lastly, many of the books or characters have crossed over into pop culture, either via a TV or feature film adaptation.

The estimated values in the table are for first edition books with dust jackets.

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With regard to the ‘most valuable by decade’ lists that have been posted, we’ve been asked to provide some reference information from the price guide.  The following is a table showing number of books in the price guide from each decade, and the average estimated market price.

Even though we consider Wanda Gag’s 1928 publication of Millions of Cats as the beginning of the contemporary children’s picturebook industry, the price guide does include works published prior to 1928 from notable picturebook illustrators.  These books were not picturebooks per se, however included illustrations from notables such as Johnny Gruelle, Maud & Miska Petersham, and Dorothy Lathrop.

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The two Chris Van Allsburg Caldecott Medal books are at the top of the most valuable books from the 1980’s. Of the two, Jumanji is more difficult to find in fine first edition condition, however there is more demand for the Polar Express, therefore its higher market value. Since the price guide's publication, we have reduced the estimated market value of both books – in our opinion, there are too many first edition copies on the market to justify a $1000+ valuation. Van Allsburg has two other books on the list, The Wreck Of The Zephyr and The Mysteries Of Harris Burdick.

Where’s Waldo?, by Martin Handford, makes the list.  First editions of this first Waldo book are not easy to find.  The other Waldo books had higher first print runs due to the success of Where’s Waldo?, and are relatively common.

Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, authored two books on the list as Theo LeSieg: the Tooth Book, illustrated by Roy McKie, and I Am Not Going To Get Up Today!, illustrated by the prolific James Stevenson.

For the second decade in a row, all ten Caldecott Medal books are included in the most valuable books of the decade.  In addition, three Caldecott Honor books make the list.  Of the Caldecott Medal winning books, Owl Moon and Song And Dance Man are probably the two most difficult to locate. Stephen Gammell, author/illustrator of Song And Dance Man has a solid collector following, however is not well known with the general population or, even the general bookselling market for that matter. Children bookselling specialists are aware of Gammell, as he has won two Caldecott Honor awards in addition to his CM.

Shadow was the third Caldecott Medal award for Marcia Brown, who also won six Caldecott Honor awards during her career.  David Wiesner is now tied with Brown for the most Caldecott Medals, after winning his third for Flotsam.  Because of this, there are several Wiesner illustrated books from the 1980’s which could see increased collector interest, notably ET, The Story Of A Green Planet (high first print run, however has 'pop culture' demand impact, and also cross-over appeal to movie memorabilia collectors) and Free Fall, a 1989 Caldecott Honor book.

A Visit To William Blake’s Inn, by Alice and Martin Provensen, is a dual award book, winning a Caldecott Honor award, and also won the 1982 Newbery Medal, which is more significant from the perspective of collectibility. Because of this, the book probably has some positive market expectations.

From Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings.

Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published, and line extensions have been made into other consumer product areas (i.e. toys, games, dolls, costumes, decorations, etc…). Lastly, many of the books or characters have crossed over into pop culture, either via a TV or feature film adaptation.

The estimated values in the table are for first edition books with dust jackets.

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Chris Van Allsburg’s first book, The Garden Of Abdul Gasazi, won a Caldecott Honor award, and leads the list of most valuable picturebooks published in the 1970s. It is difficult to find in first edition, collectible condition, as is Gerald McDermott’s Caldecott Medal winning book, Arrow To The Sun.

All ten Caldecott Medal winning books made the list of most valuable picturebooks from the decade! Leo and Diane Dillon won back-to-back Caldecott Medals with Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People’s Ears and Ashanti to Zulu. Both of these books should have some market place upside. The Dillons’ work is highly appreciated within the children’s book industry, however is underappreciated by the general population (i.e. limited pop culture exposure and appeal).

Tomie DePaola’s franchise book, Strega Nona, a Caldecott Honor winner, makes the list of most valuable books from the 1970’s, as does Mercer Mayer’s Just For You, important for introducing us to the Little Critters.  Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas, a Greenaway Medal winner, also makes the list.  The Greenaway Medal is the UK equivalent to the Caldecott, which on a whole, seem undervalued in the collectible book market place.

Dr. Seuss illustrated two books on the list, Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? and The Shape Of Me And Other Stuff.  Dr. Seuss also authored four books on the list as Theo LeSieg (Geisel spelled backwards), which were illustrated by others (In A People House, The Many Mice Of Mr. Brice, Would You Rather Be A Bullfrog?, Please Try To Remember The First Of Octember!).

As of yet, there are no books from the 1970s list which have crossed over into national public sentiment, as have Where The Wild Things Are, Polar Express, or Cat In The Hat.  Don’t misunderstand me, there are some wonderful children’s books on the list, however none that the majority of the general population would spontaneously recognize.  Odd in that.  I am not a social scientist, however wonder if this is in relation to those times, when the public's social awareness seemed to evolve - environmentalism, Vietnam, the breakdown of the Presidential office, oil cartels, integration of public schools – perhaps a nation too distracted to engage whole heartedly in a children’s book?

From Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings.

Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published.

The estimated values in the table are for first edition books with dust jackets.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In Chapter 8 of the Childrens Picturebook Price Guide, we list the most valuable picturebooks, followed by a page describing the most valuable picturebooks of each decade.

Where The Wild Things Are, the most valuable picturebook in the Price Guide, obviously heads the list of most valuable books from the 1960’s. Sendak’s marquis book is highly sought after - the books appeal not limited to just childrens book collectors - and is very difficult to obtain. When the book was awarded the Caldecott Medal, Harper & Row recalled the book to replace the DJ with a revised DJ proclaiming the award.  We valued the book at $10,200 in VG+ condition, however think the current market price is in the $15,000 range.

Remarkably, nine books on the list are from the Beginner Books imprint of Random House.  The list includes five books written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss, along with three books that he wrote (as Theo LeSieg, being Geisel spelled backwards) but did not illustrate—The Eye Book and Ten Apples Up On Top, both illustrated by Roy McKié, and I Wish That I Had Duck Feet, illustrated by B. Tobey. The auctions for first edition copies of the latter three are very competitive on eBay. Go, Dog, Go!, by P.D. Eastman is the ninth from Beginners Books to make the list, and is difficult to find in first edition, in large part because the first edition is not readily identified (DJ is required to identify).  To help rectify this, we intend to post first edition points for the first fifty Beginner Books in the near future.

The Giving Tree, the timeless story by Shel Silverstein, has been in print since its initial publication in 1964, and is still briskly sold in new book stores.  It is the fifth most valuable book from the 1960’s, and is difficult to find in first edition condition ($2.50/DJ; click on the title for first edition points with photos).  Silverstein’s first children’s book, Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book, from 1961, also is on the list of most valuable picturebooks from the 1960’s.

The Nutshell Library is a boxed sleeve set of four tiny books by Maurice Sendak, comprising Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, One was Johnny, and Pierre.  The true first edition set can only by identified by the $2.95 price sticker on the Nutshell Library box.

Four other Caldecott Medal books are on the list. Sam, Bangs, And Moonshine, Sylvester And The Magic Pebble, Drummer Hoff, and Once A Mouse.  Inch by Inch is the lone Caldecott Honor award winning book on the list.  Wonderfully crafted by Leo Leonni, the illustrations still have a contemporary feel today, some forty years after its initial publication.

From Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings.

Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published, and line extensions have been made into other consumer product areas (i.e. toys, games, dolls, costumes, decorations, etc…). Lastly, many of the books or characters have crossed over into pop culture, either via a TV or feature film adaptation.

The estimated values in the table are for first edition books with dust jackets.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide, we list the most valuable picturebooks, followed by a page describing the most valuable picturebooks of each decade.

Seven Dr. Seuss books make the list of most valuable picturebooks from the 1950’s, headed by The Cat In The Hat.  The true first state of Horton Hears A Who, with Seuss title list in back of book (list not on copyright page) is extremely difficult to find.  Of the seven Seuss books, Horton/Who, If I Ran The Zoo, and Scrambled Eggs Super are much more difficult to find than the others.  Grinch/Christmas currently has higher market value due to significant pop culture awareness.  Cat/Hat has higher pop culture awareness, but also literary significance as essentially the first beginning reader trade book, being the catalyst for a multi-billion dollar industry, and simultaneously leading to the virtual extinction of the primary reader published by the educational system (i.e. Dick and Jane readers, et al)

Harold And The Purple Crayon is the second most valuable book on the list, however is probably the most difficult book on the 1950’s list to obtain in collectible first edition condition. Harold’s Trip To The Sky is the second Crockett Johnson book to appear.  Robert McCloskey’s classic book, Journey Cake, Ho!, is also very difficult to find in first edition, as is Lynd Ward’s Caldecott Medal winning book, The Biggest Bear.

The first Eloise book is the third most valuable book from the 1950’s.  Being the first book in the Eloise franchise, it is much more difficult to find then the other books in the series. The subsequent books in the series, Eloise In Paris (1956), Eloise At Christmastime (1959), Eloise In Moscow (1959), and Eloise in London (1961) are not extremely difficult to find in first edition, collectible condition since they were initially printed in higher quantity than the original Eloise.

H.A. Rey’s Curious George character is featured in three books on the list of most valuable picturebooks from the 1950’s,   Each of the books is difficult to find in first edition format.

Four Caldecott Medal books and three Caldecott Honor books are on the list.  It is peculiar that three Caldecott Honor books from the 1950’s have a higher market value then the most valuable Caldecott Medal book from the decade.  The third of these Honor books, A Very Special House, is the first Maurice Sendak book to appear on the Most Valuable lists.

From Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings.

Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published, and line extensions have been made into other consumer product areas (i.e. toys, games, dolls, costumes, decorations, etc…). Lastly, many of the books or characters have crossed over into pop culture, either via a TV or feature film adaptation.

The estimated values in the table are for first edition books with dust jackets.

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In Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide, we list the most valuable picturebooks,  followed by a page describing the most valuable picturebooks of each decade.

Horton Hatches The Egg, by Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, tops the list of the most valuable children’s picturebooks of the decade.  First edition Dr. Seuss books are usually notoriously difficult to identify (see First Editions of Dr. Seuss Books, by Younger/Hirsch for bibliographic info) -  Horton being an exception, our copy includes ‘First Printing’ on the copyright page.  Remarkably, four of Dr. Seuss books are in the top eight most valuable picturebooks from the 1940’s! 

Tasha Tudor authored and illustrated eight of the most valuable picturebooks from the 1940’s, among them The County Fair and Thistly B.  There are three Curious George books on the list, by H.A. Rey, each of which is fairly difficult to find in first edition collectible format. Although Rey’s book, Cecily G. And The 9 Monkeys is the second American book featuring Curious George, the book’s British and French version precede the 1941 American printing of Curious George. The British version, published in 1939, was titled Raffy And The 9 Monkeys; the French version, also published in 1939, was titled Rafi et les 9 Singes.

Robert McCloskey authored and illustrated three books on the list, Make Way For Ducklings, Blueberries For Sal, and Homer Price. Blueberries For Sal is one of the most difficult Caldecott Honor books to find in first edition.  Based upon our experience, Make Way For Ducklings  and Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House are the two most difficult Caldecott Medal books to find in a first edition.  The Little House is one of the few Caldecott Medal winning books missing from our collection.

The Caldecott awards make a significant impact on the list, with five Medal books and four Honor books on the list.  The Medal books are:  Make Way For Ducklings, The Little House, Many Moons, The Rooster Crows, and The Big Snow.  The Rooster Crows was the second Caldecott award for Maud and Miska Petersham – An American ABC (1941) earned them a Caldecott Honor.  For Berta and Elmer Haders, The Big Snow was their third Caldecott award.  The Hader’s previously had won Caldecott Honor awards for Cock-A-Doodle Doo (1940) and The Mighty Hunter (1943).

From Chapter 8 of the Children's Picturebook Price Guide:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings.

Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published, and line extensions have been made into other consumer product areas (i.e. toys, games, dolls, costumes, decorations, etc…). Lastly, many of the books or characters have crossed over into pop culture, either via a TV or feature film adaptation.

The estimated values in the table are for first edition books with dust jackets.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Created a web page of the eighty-one Newbery award winning books with cover art or pictures from one of the illustrators covered in the Children's Picturebook Price Guide.  To our knowledge, this is the first time such a cross-list has been published.  See table at:

Newbery Awards With Illustrations

The table is a chronological listing, covering both Newbery Medal and Honor books. Would be happy to hear of Newbery books we might have missed, or any comments on book values.

Regards,
Stan.

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Created a page showing some selected completed eBay auctions for collectible children's picturebooks, spanning from 1999 to 2006: 

Completed eBay Auctions

The list is dominated by Seuss books. 

best regards,
Stan Zielinski

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the item description:

"This is a first edition, signed and inscribed by author C. S. Forester, illustrated by Robert Lawson.  "Raisa Rogozina, best wishes from C. S. Forester, 22nd August 1942." 

A lovely book about Poo-Poo (Harold Heaveyside Brown) and Horatio, a very playful dragon. I'm not an expert but the book is in fine condition with a little ripple at the bottom right corner, otherwise boards have no discoloration or wearing.  […] Jacket is in fine condition with just a few chips at the corners and bottom of spine and slight discoloration on back edges.  Also included is a memo from the publishers dated August 12, 1942."

The Children's Picturebook Price Guide listed the book for $780 in VG+ condition, which is probably a bit low, since eBay auctions tend to be closer to wholesale then retail. Market price should be in the $1200 range.

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