I am sorry to tell you that usually neither 1928 nor 1976 is considered very old in the book world. Of course, a first edition by a highly regarded author, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, would be a different matter.

One quick way to get an idea of your book's value is to go to a website that sells used, rare and out of print books. One example is www.bookfinder.com. Hopefully, you'll find the same edition of your book. Remember that the edition, the condition and other factors affect value.

Gibran was a very popular author during the "flower children" era. Many copies of his books appeared so your copy may not be worth much financially.

As with anything, your book is worth exactly what people are willing to pay for it!
The quickest way to determine it's going rate is to go to Amazon.com and enter the title of the book.
Then find a listing which matches your book by publication date, publisher, condition.....etc.
There you will find many of the same books being offered for sale by independent sellers.....and this will give you some idea of the book's market value.

I sell hundreds of books through Amazon.com and this is how I determine what price I will set for any given book.

I have also discovered some very valuable books using this method and have been suprised to find that what I assumed was an ordinary book was actually a very pricey one!

By the way, if you choose to sell it, it is an extremely simple procedure with Amazon.com.

Good luck!

Half.com (which is owned by ebay) is another source for information. Compare a few sites to get a good feeling. Like Ginny, I have my doubts about the value of the book, but like yoyobon, I've been surprised before.

Of particular importance for collectors is the condition of the book. If the binding is coming loose, the cover is stained, or their are copious marks throughout, the value of the book will be greatly diminished.

Good luck. Let us know what you discover!

> The title is Jesus, the Son of Man, by Kahlil Gibran and the print I have is from 1976.

Not only is 1976 not old, but Kahlil Gibran was incredibly popular and there are more of his books even older gathering dust on aging college students shelves than you can imagne. So sell it for a buck.

Many factors influence the worth of a book, condition being very important. For example, country of printing, and signed. -I have a first edition, first printing When We Were Six, from 1928 (American printing), that cost a few hundred bucks. The same book, first edition, English printing, signed by author and illustrator was going for 10,000 last time I looked.

I remember when I visited my college library for the first time - shelves and shelves were filled with what I thought were ancient books (talking 1800s). While some of these probably were valuable, chances are most weren't. I have my sights now on pre revolutionary war titles; not for the worth, but because I think they'd be interesting. Many are out of my ball park. And I'd really love even just a sheet of an illuminated manuscript. In my dreams.

If you are thinking about collecting books, choose books that match your interests. I collect children's illustrated pre 1950. Being specific helps you focus, and helps you learn more about the field so you know when someone is selling a 1920 edition of Alice in Wonderland for $500, you know to turn up your nose.

I did a quick search on Amazon.com just out of curiosity and found that your book is certainly worth more than "a buck"!

Some copies are actually listed for $25 and more.

Problem is that unless you intend to put it out there in the open market ( like Amazon.com) and be content to wait for the right buyer, you won't be able to put the same higher price tag on it and sell it at a garage sale for that amount.

A Vincent Price cookbook from 1971 which I bought at a garage sale for $1.00 sold quickly on Amazon.com for $100.00.
I had no idea of it's worth when I picked it up, and in fact had it for over 20 years before putting it up for sale just to clear off my cookbook shelf!

I have many book sale stories like that one.
You just never know.

Hey, Brutuses. It's nice to see you over here.

I'm glad you asked this question because I've also occasionally wondered how to figure out how much a book is worth, particularly after I visited the local library recently and noticed two women frantically going through the sale table of donated books and inputting the title and copyright dates into a PDA. Of course, I was just angry because they were in my way when I was trying to find a good read. :-)

Always remember, of course, that just because someone is trying to sell a book for $25, that doesn't mean it's worth $25 unless someone buys it.

I collect first editions, and have my own specialities - so I have a good idea of what certain books will and won't fetch. Some of the optimistic starting prices people put on eBay are entertaining, to say the least.

Hae a look for your book on ABE books. There are about a hundred and fifty copies, from two or three dollars up to a hundred and seventy or so. Condition is all - is yours clean, unmarked, and with a pristine dust-jacket? You might get $30. Is it a bit battered? Sell it for a dollar.

Here is a link that might be useful: ABE books - Gibran

Not a book, but compare prices: this with this. Something strange is going on.

Not that strange. What I think has happened there is that someone intended to put in a price of $4.99 and $7.49 and instead put $499 and $749....you sometimes see that on ABE as well.

I think it's reasonable to assume that the ones at $499 and $749 will not sell at that price - no matter how rare they are claimed to be!

Off topic, but related...there was a case a few years ago where a vicar had put a claim on his tax return for allowable expenses for £460. This was queried by the tax authorities, and he apologised, saying he'd made a mistake and that it should have been £4.60 for a new "dog-collar". This might have been an end of it, but a suspicious tax inspector checked his previous returns and discovered that the vicar had made the same "mistake" for the previous five years as well...

Hmm, perhaps, but I doubt it with the 99¢ tacked on after the decimal point. I confess that I paid £68 for that same LP from AbeBooks.co.uk. I expected that I could copy it and resell for enough to cover my costs. I looked on eBay about find out about pricing and found three copies for BTW and OT, do you all have that style of pricing in the UK? I can't recall when I last saw a price quoted as a whole number. I won't repeat what it's called here.

oh, yes - nothing is ever £5 - it's always £4.99

Apart from in Marks and Spencer, who charge everything in round numbers - and good for them.

Alibris is another good source for pricing on older books too. And they have an excellent search system - by author, title, publisher, etc.