Valuers

You can find a list of approved Australian valuers on the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program website.

You can also search for certified auctioneers and valuers on the Auctioneers and Valuers Association of Australia website.

There are also a number of other print and online resources you can use to value your item.

Also see: Private researchers and valuers

Books

You can search online second-hand booksellers with viaLibri to find up to date information on market values of books and access the Library's subscription of Books in Print via our eResources portal. Go to the browse eResources tab and search 'book trade' to find relevant resources.

You can also contact individual Australian Antiquarian booksellers and search their catalogues; a list of booksellers and their contact details can be found on the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) website.

There are also a number of auction price records for books published that may be useful, these include Australian Book Auction Records and American book prices current.

Rare books

Books become rare only when the demand for them is greater than the supply. The demand for a book is generated by a number of elements which affect a book's desirability and therefore its price.

Some of these elements include:

• reputation of the author, illustrator and publisher
• quality of the binding
• scarcity of the edition
• whether the book's literary genre is fashionable.

Rare books are, by their nature, less common than second-hand books. While there is no clear boundary between rare books and second-hand books for the most part, a second-hand book is a used book that is not distinguished by its edition, provenance, binding, or overall condition; its retail price generally is quite modest.

For more information, including general answers to some frequently asked questions about rare books, see the website: Your old books.

Biblio includes a book collecting guide, which includes information on what makes a book rare.

Art work

A number of our art eResources provide information on current market values of art work. One useful database you can access from home with your Library login is Australian Art Auction Records (includes New Zealand art auction results). To find this, go to our eResources portal and to the browse eResources tab and then search for the name of the database.

Published records of past art auctions can be found in the Art Sales Index. You can access this index inside the Library building, or check Trove to find a copy near you.

Maps

Lists of individual map dealers can be found at MapRecord Publications and Old maps - Marketplace.

Vinyl records

Try contacting either a record collector or auctioneer, who are experts in this field. One way to do this is to search the Yellow Pages in your area.

Audio Recycle are located in Melbourne and have information about vinyl records and their worth.

If you wish to offer your record for sale, you may also like to contact the National Film and Sound Archive. However, please note, the National Film and Sound Archive does not offer a valuation service.

Calculating the current value of old money

Estimating the current value of historical monetary amounts is not a straightforward process. It is harder to get an accurate and meaningful comparison the further back in time you go. There are some good websites that will give a calculation, but they can provide quite a variation on the figures they produce.

For monetary values dating back to the 19th century it is important to note that there was no "Australian" pound at that time. The rate was fixed to the British pound, and there was no national Australian currency until 1910. For a good general guide to the old Australian currency, try the Wikipedia article on the Australian pound which describes the issuing of notes by private banks and the use of British coinage.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has an inflation calculator which is easy to use and calculates the change in the value of Australian currency.

A website which goes into more detail on the issue is Measuring Worth. It contains several calculators, and an explanatory essay on the complexities of measuring worth.

The ABS article titled Prices in Australia at the beginning and end of the Twentieth Century was published as a feature article in the 2001 ABS Year Book.