Rare Books for sale online

[barkalotloudly]

On 28/02/2017 at 19:04, Black Maria said:

I must say that when I visited the military book fairs ( another thing that the internet has mostly killed off ) I would always ask what the dealers best price

was for a book and they would normally knock a bit off  . Although once a dealer did say that he didn't have best prices , only prices.

i was an avid book fair attendee but i finaly got fed up with all "trading" that was done before we, the public were allowed in with all the better items having been sold between the dealers so to a degree they were/are responsible for the demise of these events as i know of several other collectors who disliked this practice, Bob Wyatt to his great credit would refuse to sell anything before the doors were opened.   

[Black Maria]

6 minutes ago, barkalotloudly said:

i was an avid book fair attendee but i finaly got fed up with all "trading" that was done before we, the public were allowed in with all the better items having been sold between the dealers so to a degree they were/are responsible for the demise of these events as i know of several other collectors who disliked this practice, Bob Wyatt to his great credit would refuse to sell anything before the doors were opened.   

Yes  I do remember that happening , the first time I was made aware of it was when I saw a big pile of books behind a dealer ( one of which was on my wants list)

and realising that they had been round the fair and bought up all the choice books before it had opened and were keeping them to sell another day.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Black Maria said:

Yes  I do remember that happening , the first time I was made aware of it was when I saw a big pile of books behind a dealer ( one of which was on my wants list)

and realising that they had been round the fair and bought up all the choice books before it had opened and were keeping them to sell another day.

 

      A basic function of bookfairs. I speak as a semi-retired (synonym for knackered) bookseller- I did fairs for 25 years. Usually to buy (though not military books). Over 75% of trade at bookfairs is between exhibitors before the fairs start. Boycotting a bookfair because of this is a fair enough stance. But bookfairs would have disappeared long since, were it not that the trade regard them as a convenient meeting place to do business with each other-and the stock of non-fair  booksellers and dedicated public coming in.(Plus,of course-a convivial lunch for gossip -paid for, no doubt, out of our ill-gotten gains).

     Many fairs (ie ABA and PBFA) frown on booksellers putting out stuff at the same fair where it had been bought beforehand. But many serious collectors jump the counter and become part-time booksellers at fairs. With many fairs-eg the ETC fairs run by George Jeffery in London, there is no criterion for booking a stand other than turn up,pay the rent and make some sort of effort to put some books out.

[Black Maria]

12 minutes ago, voltaire60 said:

 

     

     Many fairs (ie ABA and PBFA) frown on booksellers putting out stuff at the same fair where it had been bought beforehand. But many serious collectors jump the counter and become part-time booksellers at fairs. With many fairs-eg the ETC fairs run by George Jeffery in London, there is no criterion for booking a stand other than turn up,pay the rent and make some sort of effort to put some books out.

Yes, it wasn't  the practice of the dealers buying amongst themselves that was annoying as much as the fact that they were reluctant to sell the books they had

just purchased to people who had travelled miles to get there , queued up for half an hour and paid to get in.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Black Maria said:

Yes, it wasn't  the practice of the dealers buying amongst themselves that was annoying as much as the fact that they were reluctant to sell the books they had

just purchased to people who had travelled miles to get there , queued up for half an hour and paid to get in.

 

     Agreed- but it's back to the point about not selling books purchase that day at the same fair. Several booksellers used to turn up with literally nothing-and buy some stuff before the fair opened. At least the No Resale rule forces booksellers to at least bring something.

   Most bookfairs will be a thing of the past within 5 years-the stock of booksellers doing the fairs is getting smaller and older-and the customers dragging round are,on balance, older still. When I go to the bookfairs at the Royal National in London, the customer base going in through the doors (including me) looks like a bad day at an outpatients clinic at the Hammersmith Hospital

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I agree with BM about fairs. I suppose I wouldn't have minded if the dealers had been more discreet about it. It was seeing those little piles tucked under the lower shelf with a dealers card sticking out of them. But I do realise that's where most of the business gets done, so if it keeps the trade going all well and good.

[Will M]

I find that more antique military books are rising in price. When making an offer take into account the book store usually pays nothing for books. When people bring in boxes of old book because they can't see them being trashed, they are offered a small amount for a couple books and claim the rest are of no value. As the seller just wants to dispose of the books the low ball deal is made rather than lugging the books back home.

I did this once, brought in a box of antique books but first I googled prices. I was told some of my books worth over $300 had no value. He picked out one book and offered $30.

I almost got the owner to admit most of his stock he gets for free but then he realized where I was leading him.

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, Will M said:

take into account the book store usually pays nothing for books

 

      I wish!!!!!!    There are booksellers who pay next-to-nothing -often the ones who advertise that they pay top prices. There is one in London whom even other booksellers blanche at when on joint purchases-at least 3 have declined to do it a second time. But the owner is wealthy-and hugely knowledgeable and has a very interesting stock. 

     The former book runner and social critic Driff tried the box of books ploy for the Grauniad years ago.Ho-Ho-Jolly good to see the difference in offers made-and the alleged value of the stuff. Pity that an item Driff rated at #200 was -the same copy-bought for a quid from a bookstall by me a year later( and sold for ten).

     My favourite anecdote is of a fellow who complained the price of a book was too high- a brand new Cambridge University Press book published at #70 and which we priced at 40 ( We bought review books from a national journal but it was an expensive business) The conversation went roughly as follows:

      Why is this book 40 pounds?

 

       Because it has just been published at 70

 

       You won't sell it at that price

 

       But Cambridge University Press obviously think they will sell a couple of thousand of them at the cover price, so I live in hope

 

        But you booksellers pay nothing for books- You can buy a book like this for 50p in Oxfam

 

       (Irate me)  When was the last time you bought  book like this for 50p in Oxfam

 

          Not lately-That's because you booksellers get there first

 

[Will M]

A used book seller in Kingston Ont. Canada writes his price on the inside cover and two prices he claims are online for the same book. His price falls in between those prices but he fails to write in the lowest prices. 

Test your bookstore by bringing in a box of books that you googled the prices on. Just see what they offer you.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Will M said:

googled the prices on

 

1) This is England- we ain't got many bookstores left

2) Price on Google is for UNSOLD ITEMS listed elsewhere. If one idiot has an unsellable copy of a book listed online, that does not mean the book increases in value. I must remind you of the second half of the old quote-Great minds think alike.....

[Guest]

OK- here is what I think is a little treasure on ABE- listed by a London dealer in manuscripts whom I know slightly-so again, no commercial interest in putting this item up- It simply stands out as unusual:

Anonymous manuscript First World War narrative poem titled 'The Message of the King', concerning a blinded soldier who asks a doctor to kill him.

First World War dramatic monologue; Royal Army Medical Corps, Delhi Barracks, Tidworth, Wiltshire]

Published by RAMC Delhi Barracks Tidworth Wiltshire. Circa (1918)

 

Item Description: RAMC Delhi Barracks Tidworth Wiltshire. Circa, 1918. Four pages, 4to. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged ruled paper, with watermark 'D. K & Co. | LONDON'. Sixty-four lines, arranged in eight eight-line stanzas. Apparently unpublished. Evocative of the sensibilities of a more naive age: sincerely meant, but coming across somewhat in the style of a Stanley Holloway monologue. First stanza: 'The hospital ward was cheerful | In spite of the suffering ones there | For each patient who lay there so helpless | Was studied and thought of with care | The doctors and nurses spoke kindly | As they went around to each bed | And the patients had learned to love them | For the things they had done and had said.' The poem proceeds with 'one of the sufferers' , who had been blinded 'during the war with the Germans' asking a nurse 'if she'd give him something | To send him to sleep till he died'. A doctor responds 'It's more than I dare do [.] I must get His Majesty's sanction'. The royal response is: 'Tell your patient to quickly recover | The king needs him although he is blind'. At this the patient makes a rapid recovery, and goes to the Palace, where he does 'little odd duties | Employing his time for the best'. The 'theme' of the poem, in the last line, is 'That the King hath need of us all.' From the papers of Captain Henry Wentworth Windsor Aubrey (c.1859-1934), M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., who was stationed at R.A.M.C. Delhi Barracks, Tidworth, Wiltshire, during the Great War. Bookseller Inventory # 14480

    Now for the pros and cons:

1) At a strictly personal level, I find most of the items from my erstwhile colleague just a tad expensive- But he is a man of great learning and has been doing this kind of material for 30 plus years-so he must be doing something right as he has not wasted away from starvation.

2)  On the plus side- an item that is unique-in MS- on a theme that has become a little more sexy over the decades- the treatment of war wounded and the handicapped. The theme of suicide is distinctly uncommon.

3)  On the minus side-  Identifying the author- A bit of a puzzler-as it is quite possible that the item was indeed published-but just not findable easily.

    OK- put up as a discussion point for those interested in collecting Great War materials

 

 

[Will M]

20 hours ago, voltaire60 said:

 

1) This is England- we ain't got many bookstores left

2) Price on Google is for UNSOLD ITEMS listed elsewhere. If one idiot has an unsellable copy of a book listed online, that does not mean the book increases in value. I must remind you of the second half of the old quote-Great minds think alike.....

Exactly price of unsold books. Once he priced any and every military book at $50 and up I stopped shopping there. Last I looked the military books he had were piled high on the floor in front of the shelving, he had no more room for them. Definitely not selling at these high prices.

 

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Here's one for those of you who collect the Official History of the War but don't like ex-library copies (yes I'm thinking of you, Martin). One of the scarcer of the unrestricted volumes is Blenkinsop's 'Veterinary Services'. Apparently 1500 copies were printed but I doubt they shifted all that many of them. World War Books on ABE has a copy albeit at a rather punchy £645. No jacket, but like the Medicals it probably never had one.

[Guest]

     Blenkinsop- Veterinary Services. Yes, a scarce volume. No reason why. Quite a number of vets. served and, like pre-NHS doctors (nb don't mention James Heriot here) they usually had a good income-so one might expect more copies to turn up.  Unable to comment too much on price-World War Books know what they are doing at that end of the market (ie-Knowledge plus good commercial sense).

   Now- following on from a consideration of "officials" that aren't official but maybe "officials" just the same, here is an item from Peter Harrington, ABA- whose prices make Cartier look like Poundland and lunch at The Ivy akin to Macdonalds

 

   Good of them to chuck in the postage though

Bookseller Image

Ministry of Munitions of War. H.M. Factory, Gretna. Description of Plant and Process.

WORLD WAR I.)

Published by Dumfries: Printed for HMSO by J. Maxwell & Son, 1918 (1918)

Used First Edition

 

Price: £ 1,950

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Item Description: Dumfries: Printed for HMSO by J. Maxwell & Son, 1918, 1918. Foolscap quarto (338 × 208 mm) Original maroon skiver, title gilt to the upper board within panel of swags in blind. Rubbed at the extremities, and neatly rebacked, contents clean and sound. Profusely illustrated with diagrams, plans and sketch-maps, many of them folding, some coloured, and a number of half-tone plates from photographs including extensive panoramas of the works and the cordite ranges. First and only edition. The massive factory site, which included the two purpose-built townships of Gretna and Eastriggs, was established as a response to the Shell Crisis of 1915. The plant's product was cordite - a smokeless propellant explosive comprised of a mixture of nitro-glycerine and nitro-cellulose, or gun cotton, and described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after a visit to the site as "The Devil's Porridge" - and within a year of commencing production it was turning out 800 tons a week, more than all the other factories in Britain combined. Two thirds of the close 17,000 workers were women. The site was closed at the end of the war, the buildings demolished, eventually being parcelled off into 700 lots and sold off in the 1920s. A remarkably detailed technical account of this vital contribution to victory in World War I, this copy that of Lord Moulton who was Director General of the Explosive Supply Department. Uncommon, just four copies recorded on OCLC. Bookseller Inventory # 79783

 

       Actually, five trackable copies- Worldcat overlooks the IWM copy. Now this is typical of the sort of "in-house" histories and studies published towards the end of the war and just after when many of these ad hoc or wartime establishments and bodies were done away with. Obviously printed up internally (Oh,to see the printer codes on this one) and a presentation copy to a big-wig- probably any other copies were so distributed. Certainly not for publication or purcahse by outsiders.

     And another scarce item to keep it company is:

Title

Preliminary Studies for H.M. Factory, Gretna, and Study for an Installation of Phosgene Manufacture. [Edited, with introduction, by William Macnab. With plates.]

Author

Great Britain. Ministry of Munitions. Department of Explosives Supply.

Published

London, 1919

Physical description

xvi, 145 p. ; 8º

   

      Taken from COPAC- No copies for sale. Possible that this is the previous item with the addition of a chapter on Phosgene. No surprise it was not published, with references to Phosgene. (I note the last published communication between Britain an Germany in 1939- in the blue book on Outbreak- was an exchange of cables-We won't use gas if you don't"-actually after declaration of war by Nev.)

 

       Rare item for sale- with a close relative also lurking in a few libraries but indicative of the sort of ad hoc in-house books of the time- all of them scarce.

 

 

[David Filsell]

Ouch!

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, David Filsell said:

Ouch!

 

   It's well beyond that- it's a  Goldman Sachs Platinum Plated Ouch. I put this up not only for the subject about internal histories but also to illustrate that mdoestly uncommon items have taken a price hit-they now seem common-but anything really unusual has gone sky high. Too late for either of us to rue the books we didn't buy years ago. B****gger

[Dust Jacket Collector]

1 hour ago, voltaire60 said:

 

   It's well beyond that- it's a  Goldman Sachs Platinum Plated Ouch. I put this up not only for the subject about internal histories but also to illustrate that mdoestly uncommon items have taken a price hit-they now seem common-but anything really unusual has gone sky high. Too late for either of us to rue the books we didn't buy years ago. B****gger

Fortunately there can still be wild fluctuations in prices between dealers as evinced by the 'Reveille' case mentioned earlier.

Very pleased to have bought the cheaper of the three sets, by the way. As far as I can tell all the pieces in it were making their first appearances. Certainly the poems by Sassoon, Graves, Nichols & Kipling hadn't been published before. (I'll probably give that Munitions publication a miss though - I don't think Harrington's really cater for people like me).

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Fortunately there can still be wild fluctuations in prices between dealers as evinced by the 'Reveille' case mentioned earlier.

Very pleased to have bought the cheaper of the three sets, by the way. As far as I can tell all the pieces in it were making their first appearances. Certainly the poems by Sassoon, Graves, Nichols & Kipling hadn't been published before. (I'll probably give that Munitions publication a miss though - I don't think Harrington's really cater for people like me).

 

   DJC- If there are not fluctuations in price-and perception of "price"/"value", then there can be no market- Someone's perception of what price to buy has to be matched by another's perception of what price to sell.

     Peter Harrington are just in a different league- where the customer is so wealthy that they are not bothered how much a book has sold for before or what similar items cost. The owner, Pom Harrington, is the Quaritch of this generation- that is, "the Napoleon of books". Very smart businessman but not overbearing with it-and has assembled a good team of real experts-the military is Glen Mitchell, formerly of Maggs,so no slouch to the "top trade"

    Gretna was not put up as a suggestion to buy but an indication of how truly scarce items have soared in price.

 

       Glad you enjoyed "Reveille" -probably the nearest I will ever get to Great War literary things-and then a chance memory of years ago. I hope you will now put in the hours of homework on this to study the how the magazine came to be as it is- The Manchester book on Galsworthy and the disabled I would strongly recommend as a starting point (It's quite cheap as well). Quite how C.S.Lewis got into it is a literary puzzle that is right up your street. Good luck on that. Happy to pointed something of interest your way.

    Now- better have a look for some proper "official" books at a reasonable price- as Marth has to keep a happy canine well endowed with dog treats.