Value, a relative term. The value of a thing may refer to a certain standard with which the thing can be measured or compared. The factors of comparison should be capable of precise definition.
The word 'value,' when used without adjunct, always means in political economy, value in exchange; or, as it has been called by Adam Smith and his successors, exchangeable value, a phrase which no amount of authority that can be quoted for it can make other than bad English. Mr. De Quincey substitutes the term 'exchange value,' which is unexceptionable, 1 Mill's Pol. Econ. 528, 578.
The word 'value,' it is to be observed, has more than one meaning, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called 'value in use,' the other 'value in exchange.' The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water, but it will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use, but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it, 1 Sm. Wealth of Nat. 37.
By s. 4 of the (English) Sale of Goods Act, 1893 (q.v.), a sale of goods of the value of 10l. or upwards (must be in writing, etc.) this enactment being a repetition of s. 17 of the Statute of Frauds as amended by (English) Lord Tenterden's Act (9 Geo. 4, c. 14), s. 7, which substituted 'value' for 'price.'
The monetary worth or price of something; the amount of goods, services, or money that something will command in an exchange, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1549.
Means the real market value of the property involved, Nawaz Ali v. Allu, AIR 1924 Lah 82; Rafuddin Ahmad v. Rami, AIR 1939 Oudh 1; Mohiram v. Bansi Lal, AIR 1957 HP 9.