Books: fiction, textbooks, children's books

Ask for photos of the spine, page edges and endpapers: water damage and a loose block show immediately. Yellowed paper on editions older than 20 years is normal, not a defect.

Late August has the best selection: last year's sets are sold class by class. Ask for the whole set for your grade — cheaper than collecting one by one.

First editions, small print runs, signed copies, pre-war printings. Condition is critical: the same book in mint state and with a torn cover differs in price several times over.

Sell it as a lot: 'a 200+ volume library' finds a buyer faster than you'd think — book dealers and readers collect such lots. Alternatives: school and children's books sell individually fastest, and libraries, book-crossing shelves and charity fairs take the rest. Discarding is the last resort.

School textbooks second-hand run 50–150 hryvnias against 300–500 new; a class set comes at a real discount to the sum of singles. Supply peaks in August as last year's classes sell their sets. By September the choice thins sharply and prices climb.

Three factors: year and print run (pre-1945, small runs), condition (dust jacket, tight block), and demand (first editions of cult authors, once-banned printings, lifetime editions). Comparable auction lots are the fastest valuation. Mass Soviet subscription editions, alas, hold almost no value — they were printed in the millions.