I have a fairly small book collection that I am looking to get appraised for insurance purposes.
Does anyone have any advice on finding an appraisor? How much should I expect to pay for such a service? Would I go to the appraisor, or would they come to me? Has anyone ever had this done?
By coincidence, I just had my collection appraised. Oddly, the hard part wasn’t finding an appraiser but finding an insurance company willing to write the policy. We have an independent insurance firm and our agent there had to go to a bunch of companies to find one. We finally went with Chubb. You absolutely need to start with your insurance company and find out whether they will cover this and what their requirements are.
Finding the right appraiser is dependent on what your collection consists of. If it is a specialized collection you have to find someone who is knowledgeable in that area. A more general collection can be looked at by any good used book dealer. Is there anybody in your area that you’ve been working with? If not, just go around and talk to the used, rare or antiquarian book dealers in your area to see whether any of them would be suitable and will agree.
The appraiser came to my house. Of course, I have 10,000 books so they weren’t going anywhere. They charged by the hour and so moved through fairly quickly, just going through the specialized collections book by book and doing more general estimates for the ordinary mass that was the bulk of the library. These were just reading copies, nothing special, so they literally took the amount of shelf footage and multiplied by a standard figure.
If you have a really small collection, it would be helpful if you wrote up the particulars for each book. The appraiser can then check off estimates of condition and use this as a base to check online for current values.
Once I had a total amount, I took it and the appraiser’s credentials to my insurance agent and we wrote up the policy on the spot. From now on I can just give them receipts for any significant addition to the collectibles and they’ll adjust the policy accordingly.
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Will you marry me?
I’ll check with my wife, Lynn. (At least I won’t have to learn a new name.)
But first - how many books do you have?
Ummmmm, two storage sheds full, and two rooms full. And I do mean FULL. Also, my daughter works at a used book store, so I have connections.
Hey you two! Get a room! 
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So, do you have any tips for finding an appriaser, or is it just a “look in the yellow pages” kind of thing?
Also, I was told specifically by my homeowners insurance agent that anything like that would be covered by my personal property coverage and that I didn’t need a special policy or rider. Thoughts?
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[hijack]Works in a book store? Lynn, how old is your daughter?[/hijack]
Normally, books are covered under a homeowner’s policy. But getting the value back on true collections is a different proposition. When we looked into it, we couldn’t get a straight answer from our regular insurer as to just what evidence they would require or accept that we a) had the books in the first place and b) that they had the value we would claim for them and c) what would happen if just certain valuable books were destroyed instead of the whole house going up in smoke.
Having an insurance policy and getting the company to pay off on it are not necessarily the same thing. If your collection is really large or really valuable you want an appraisal and a special rider or policy.
As I said, for an appraiser find someone with knowledge of the type of books you own. Most rare book stores will either have this knowledge or tell you who to go to for it. I know most of the stores in my region, but if you don’t you might want to talk to some locals for their opinions.