Having been a book dealer, off and on, for the past twenty years or so, I have spent a lot of time in bookstores. Also a lot time in Thrift Stores. Garage Sales, estate sales, and looking in boxes on the curb on trash day. There are slightly different expectations from each of these channels of finding books, but there is one constant when you are looking for items to sale-the books have to be perfect, or as close as possible to perfect. I am always shocked when I go into an old style book maze type bookshop, where books…
Category: book sellers
The Folio Society
I was once a book dealer and had the occasional Folio Society book to resale. They are fine books for the more part, heavy, attractive, and often with a protective slipcase. These are collectible books made to be lined up on a shelve, and there is nothing wrong with that. The things that make a rare book rare, such a first edition or an edition signed by the author, are not as important as they once were. Though they are still important. All you have to do is read Used and Rare to find that there are still people falling…
Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World
Having been a book seller, off and on, for about twenty years, I fell in love with The Goldstones’ Used and Rare, Warmly Inscribed, and Slightly Chipped-all books about Real book dealers. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and countless poor yahoos such as myself are just in it for the money-these dealers live and breath rare books. Used and Rare is the story of a couple looking for a copy of War and Peace-only to find that there are gazillions of editions, the better ones priced well out of their range. And well out of the range of most normal people,…