Every engagement is scoped in writing, priced transparently, and delivered by William personally.
Tell us the book, or the shape of the book. We work through a national network of ABAA and ILAB colleagues, plus private estate contacts, to find the copy that's actually worth owning. We handle negotiation, condition review, and shipping.
Typical fee: 12% commission on placed acquisitions, or a fixed retainer for long searches.
USPAP-compliant written valuations for insurance scheduling, estate settlement, IRS charitable donations, and equitable division among heirs. Each report includes provenance notes, condition grading, comparable sales, and high-resolution photography.
Typical fee: $250 per hour, most single-item appraisals complete in 2–4 hours.
From a hundred titles to ten thousand, we help serious readers assemble libraries with a point of view. This includes acquisition planning, shelf arrangement, cataloguing in Library Thing or a bespoke system, and insurance documentation.
Typical engagement: six to eighteen months, retainer-based.
When a library is inherited, families face decisions no one taught them how to make. We visit, catalogue, and advise: what to keep, what to donate, what to sell, and through what channel. We can also purchase collections outright when that is the fairer path.
Consultation: $400 flat, credited against any subsequent engagement.
Most books are better left alone. When restoration is genuinely appropriate — a broken spine on an important family bible, foxing on a signed presentation copy — we refer to conservators in Los Angeles and Berkeley we have worked with for years, and coordinate the project on your behalf.
Coordination: included when we source or place the book.
Bookplate identification, inscription attribution, and ownership-history research. Useful for sellers wanting to substantiate a claim, and for buyers who care where a book has been. Deliverable is a written provenance report with cited sources.
Typical fee: $600–$1,800 depending on depth.
Yes, when the book fits our practice. Send photographs of the title page, copyright page, and any inscriptions or damage, and we'll respond honestly within a business day.
Yes. Reports are prepared to USPAP standards, and William is a qualified appraiser for both scheduled personal-property insurance and IRS Form 8283 charitable-contribution filings above $5,000.
Regularly. Roughly a third of our clients are outside the state; we travel for on-site work when the engagement warrants it, and video consultations cover the rest.
Selectively. Consignments run 25% commission and we do not accept books we could not place within twelve months. That is protective for both sides.
Every book we sell comes with a written description, condition report, and — where relevant — a provenance note. If we can't stand behind a book, we don't offer it.
A short email or a phone call is enough to begin. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right people for the job.
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Monroe & Ashcraft