Reading for the Puja holidays
The thick Sharadiya annuals, long novels for long afternoons and books for children home from school: what Kolkata reads in autumn.
How we price an old or rare book
Edition, condition, completeness and demand: the four things that decide what a second-hand book costs at Golpo.
New books at Golpo are sold at the printed price. Old books are different, and people are often curious why one 1950s book costs ₹150 and another ₹2,400. Here is how we decide.
The first question is the edition. A first edition, especially of a book that became important later, is usually worth more than a reprint, because fewer copies exist. Our copy of Letters from the Hooghly, a 1956 first edition, is priced at ₹2,400 partly for this reason. Later reprints of the same title might be ₹300 to ₹500.
The second is condition. We check every old book page by page, and we describe exactly what we find: foxing, which is brown spotting on the paper, loose or torn pages, a cracked spine, writing or a previous owner’s name, and missing pages. A clean, tight copy can be worth three or four times one in poor condition.
The third is completeness. Multi-volume sets, like the five leather-bound volumes of 1920s Bengal travel journals at ₹6,800, lose much of their value if a single volume is missing. Original maps, plates and dust jackets also matter. The last is demand, meaning how many people are actually looking for this book. Some old books are rare but few people want them, and they stay modestly priced. We do not raise the price because a customer seems keen, and the price on the pencilled label is the same for everyone. If you think a price is wrong, tell us why; we have changed prices after a good conversation more than once.
