Will the law consider the issue of adequacy of consideration in this instance?
No. Without some showing that the seller had specific expert knowledge of the book's value and purposely withheld that information to induce the seller to sell it for inadequate consideration, the court will not interfere in the transaction.
Generally, in order to rescind a sales contract for inadequate consideration, the transaction would have to be unconscionable at the time of its formation. Even the unconscionability would probably be insufficient in and of itself without some evidence to establish that the process or negotiations generating the transaction were patently unfair on the part of the party who benefited unconscionably.
The gross disparity between the actual value of the book and the nominal...
consideration paid for it would be sufficient to meet the unconscionability test under circumstances where the seller relied on misrepresentations of material fact by the buyer or where the buyer induced the seller to make the sale knowing full well that the book was a valuable original.
However disproportionate the consideration paid to the actual value of the book, the court will not interfere in a transaction between a seller who is not an expert, who did not have specific knowledge of the true value of the book, where the seller was not induced by the seller in any way to put the item up for sale, where the buyer did not make any representations at all as to the lack of greater value of the item, and where the seller did agree to the transaction after relying on any such representations by the buyer to his detriment.
