Videos
I think people link value with utility—the usefulness of an object, a service, a product or a person. Can I use it?
By the degree of using something, the more it can be consumed, the higher its value is.
For example, a new car and a used car have different prices. A new car is 2 times more expensive than the used car, because the used car can only be driven for 50 miles and the new car can be driven for 100 miles.
However, other than utility, are there other factors that make something valuable?
If it's completely based on market's supply and demand, some objects aren't considered valuable even it is rare. For example, a 4 leaf clover, or a 1960 9 cent copper coin that is only worth 9 cents.
It seems that if something is monetarily expensive, not only does it have to be rare, but it also has to be valuable. So how do we define "valuable"?
What comes into my mind is that... something that is rare, but many people want it, then it becomes valuable. This is the rule of "what is rare is expensive" from supply and demand. It needs to fit 2 conditions at once: A. It's rare. B. Many people want it.
OK... so aside from utility of something, are there any other factors that make something valuable?
Well? I cannot find a satisfactory answer and it's slightly pissing me off.
There is one. No one uses it.
invalue, v.²
transitive. To make valuable; to give value to.
Literally no one. The OED notes that, as far as it can tell, it has only shown up in dictionaries glossing Latin invalidare or filling things out as a possible coinage. It hasn't been seen in the wild.
Incidentially, it's even less useful than it looks at first glance. That ² is there because there's an invalue, v.¹ which uses the other sense of the prefix in- to offer the exact opposite meaning: to reckon of no value or worth. That has (rarely) shown up in actual usage.
There are words for what you're trying to say but they're generally describing natural processes (interest and inflation naturally accrue or grow), recognizing the already intrinsic worth of something (antiques and mineral lodes can be discovered, recognized, appreciated, &c), or creating undeserved worth for untoward ends (talk up, pump, gild, &c). For all of those, though, the context needs to be clarified before the meaning will be clear. They won't have a simple abstract meaning of to increase sth in value on their own.
Valorize. The original term is adapted from the French mettre en valeur, but it has made its way into English, mostly in “international” writing (UN, OECD, etc.) where a noble sentiment must be expressed in multiple languages.
Here’s one of multiple dictionary references: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/valorize
If you read official documents written in Canada, you soon get accustomed to seeing mettre en valeur translated straight across as valorize, and mise en valeur translated as valorization. People who prepare original drafts simultaneously in English and French tend to harmonize them, even if the wording ends up being stilted in one or both languages.
In many cases, strict equivalence in the reading of the translation is more important than literary style.