Investment
Insights and Perspectives

Of all the emotional asset categories, rare books and manuscripts exhibit the most stable return and low risk profiles. Many collectors today are forced to think of their emotional assets as capital assets, not because of an investment strategy, but because of their sheer price escalation.

The decline of institutional acquisition of rare books began in the early 1970s, when the successive blows of oil-shock inflation and loss of government funding stymied their purchasing. In the 1980s, their ability to compete with private collectors was increasingly undermined. By this time,  however, most of the world’s rare books had moved into libraries.

 

“If we look back to the 1920s, there was much closer parity between the rare book and fine arts markets than there has been in the post-World War 2 era. In this sense, there is a good argument that rare books as a class have been undervalued and out of favour, and that some of the leaps forward of recent times reflect new buyers recognising this and restoring books to something like their old position in the overall framework of value.”

-William S. Reese, The Rare Book Market Today

 

 

Rare manuscripts

Although there has historically been a demand for rare manuscripts that exceeds supply, causing substantial increases in value, there is no guarantee that this will be the case in the future. Demand for rare manuscripts of a particular area or type may be affected by regional or world trends and tastes.
 


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