For when someone else needs the number: an insurer, an executor, a family member, or a buyer for the whole lot. The work is making the total hold up to questions. Budget an hour for a few thousand books, most of it spent on the expensive end.
1. Get everything in first
A valuation is only as complete as the inventory. Books in a longbox that never got entered are worth zero on paper. Start with Collector setup or Switching from another app.
2. Fill in the identifying details
Run Run Bulk Enrich from Settings → Data so creators, dates and covers are attached. A list with covers and creators reads as a record. A list of bare titles reads as a guess.
3. Grade the top of the collection
Sort by value and work down from the top. The first 50 books usually carry most of the total, and those are the ones an insurer or buyer will challenge. Grade them, note slab numbers in the condition fields, and photograph anything significant.
Detail: Inventory.
4. Settle the prices
Check what each expensive book is priced from. Market values come from real sale behaviour. Estimated values are a bracket for books with thin data, and those are the ones to review by hand. Where you have a professional appraisal or a recent comparable sale, type it as a Manual price so it stops moving.
Detail: Price checking setup.
5. Export the list
Settings → Data exports your inventory as a CSV, with values and cost basis per row. That file plus the dashboard total is what you hand to the insurer, the executor, or the buyer.
Detail: Settings.
Say what the number is
- It is an estimate, not an appraisal. Insurers often want a professional appraisal above a threshold. This gives the appraiser a head start and keeps their bill down.
- Date it. Values move. A total is only true for the day you exported it, so put the date on the file you hand over.
- Total value excludes books already sold. It counts what is in stock and listed. Detail: Dashboard.
- Replacement cost is not sale price. Insurance asks what it costs to buy the book again. A quick sale usually clears less.