n.the amount a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in an unregulated marketOwsley 1965, 149Several years ago Seymour Connor, Director of the Southwestern Collection, Texas Technological College, worked out a form for reporting manuscript appraisals to the Internal Revenue Service. The form contains the statement that “the appraised value is based on opinions of independent dealers and collectors and prices quoted in catalogs and auction lists” and that “where fair market value is difficult or impossible to ascertain because of the nature of the materials donated a minimum value derived from the cost to the College of repairing, restoring, cataloging and preserving these materials is used as a basis.”Mason 1977, 42Even though the Tax Reform Act of 1969 (H.R. 13270) prohibited the deduction for the gift of one’s “self-generated” personal or public papers to an archives or library, there are still situations where such gifts are legitimate, and furthermore there is a movement in Congress to amend the present restrictive gift provisions to allow at least partial deduction of the fair market value.Berkeley 1977, 53Determination of fair market value of some property is reasonably easy. If you own a 1972 Chevrolet which you wish to donate to a qualified local charity which needs a car to carry on its work, you can obtain the fair market value of that automobile from one of the standard “blue books” available in the used car trade, and widely used by local tax offices in assessing the property tax value of automobiles.Brichford 1977, 21In the 1950s, the donors of records began to deduct on their federal income tax returns the “fair market value” of collections given to a research institution. With encouragement by the institutions and acceptance by the Internal Revenue Service, the practice spread in the 1960s. Given the obvious difficulty of establishing the sale price of a unique collection and the conflict of interest inherent in appraisals by donees, manuscript dealers established themselves as appraisers.Rendell 1983, 307Archives and manuscript collections are appraised for four principal reasons: to determine the amount of tax deduction to which a donor is entitled, to determine the fair market value an institution should pay for a collection, to meet the requirements of settling an estate, and for insurance purposes. In all four situations the actual financial value placed on the material is the same; fair market value does not change because of the purposes of the appraisal.Doylen 2001, 356Libraries and archives are not businesses, but eBay has the potential to transform how they manage collections. They can use it to acquire wanted materials for their fair-market value, and to deaccession unwanted materials for the highest price someone is willing to pay.Hodson 2011, 348In addition, the book discusses appraisals for establishing the fair market value of donated collections, to determine either a purchase price or a value for a tax deduction.
