----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Joel Kovarsky" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2013 8:42:07 AM
Subject: Re: Determining Rare Maps



On 3/6/2013 9:03 AM, Angie Cope wrote:
From Carlos Diaz


On the insurance thread, someone mentioned rare maps, which prompted a question in my head....how do you determine what is a rare map? What sources are available, how do you determine value, etc.?
This is quite complex and partly depends on the what one means by rarity and value. Something can be rare and not commercially valuable or commercially valuable and not that rare. As to appraisal issues, are you going to insure everything under a blanket limit, are you going to insure based on individual valuations (which can fluctuate over time), or a combination of the two? The latter makes a good bit of sense if you have a significant (another loaded word) collection with some items maintained with a vault arrangement.

Are you interested in replacement value, current market value, or initial cost? How frequently are you going to reassess your valuations? Some of the institutional decision will most certainly be predicated on what is available for premiums and how the budget shifts over time. And the ACRL ethics (keep in mind these are not laws) statements ( http://www.rbms.info/standards/code_of_ethics.shtml ) stipulate that a librarian should not be involved in the appraisal of their own material--a posture likely very hard to maintain given the specialized management skills required, not to mention the knowledge most curators have of their own collections. This is not to mention the variability in institutional approaches ( http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec272web.pdf ; this is just the executive summary of a survey).

Having said all this (and not even considering issues of condition, provenance, and more), since often you need some idea of commercial value, a couple of sites allow (very) rough approximations:



http://www.oldmaps.com/ (requires payment for use, but this can be tailored to the frequency of your needs and it encompasses the older Antique Map Price Record)

www.vialibri.net (probably the best freely accessible metasearch engine for out-of-print materials, including some maps; it includes many databases that can be selected)

http://www.bookpricescurrent.com/Default.aspx (also by subscription, and some institutions already have this; would be better for maps within intact books)
There are all sorts of pitfalls here and my remarks just scratch the surface. Numerous dealers offer appraisals. Those that offer free appraisals over the net often (and with good reason) stipulate that their estimates are not for valuation purposes with respect to an individual map or collection.

Joel Kovarsky