Rare Book Monthly
Ken Leach Reflects On Over<br>35 Years Of Bookselling
In 1990 the AAS acquired from Mr. Leach his extraordinary collection of book bindings.
Mr. Leach has lived through many changes in the book business, one of which has been increasing competition for a limited supply. At the time of this interview, he had just put in six bids at an auction in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and was unsure whether he would get any of them. In the 1970s, he recalled, he was the only book buyer at many auctions. “Now there are too many people buying.” And, he pointed out, the buyers are dealers, not collectors. They push prices up to levels Leach feels are at the top of their limits. “You used to be able to buy books for very reasonable prices and sell them for very reasonable prices,” Leach says. “You can’t do that nowadays.”
He said that pricing remained fairly stable through the 1970s, but began to rise in the 1980s, and really took off with the economic expansion in the 1990s. By 1995, the prices of titles were frequently triple what they had been in the 1970s. In the ‘90s, “people had plenty of money and they spent it.” Today, he finds that understanding the value of books has been complicated by the internet sites. “People click on the internet and see all of these prices.” For example, he points out, you may find a title online for prices ranging from $300 to $3,000 without any clear differentiation as to why the one is so much more valuable than the other. What does this mean?
Another change Ken Leach has experienced over the years has been a change in customers. In the early days, he sold many of his books to individual collectors. Today, such collectors form very little of his business. He believes that the number of people who truly collect books has decreased over the years, as they have turned to other items to collect. His business now primarily comes from institutions and fellow booksellers.
One institution with which he has a particularly close relationship is the American Antiquarian Society, of which he is a member and to which he has supplied books for many years. It is the only organization to which he belongs. Leach has always been an independent and has preferred to operate on his own. Not even his family has ever been involved in the business. He recalls exhibiting at the first Boston book fair in the 1970s. He brought some very interesting fiction works to that fair but “nobody looked at them.” He concluded that operating on his own was the best route for him.
Among his other customers has been the University of Pennsylvania, which has purchased material from him to fill its collection of 18th century material. Until budget cuts forced them to withdraw, the University of Michigan was also a significant buyer. Despite being located in Vermont, some the largest purchases from his last catalogue came from a dealer in the Southwest and one on the west coast. He pointed out that he put out a catalogue in February and not a single collector responded. All of the sales went to booksellers and institutions.
What are his plans for the future? For Ken Leach, it is basically more of the same. Times have changed, but his love for the world of bookselling has not. “I’m never going to retire,” he says. He may not work the 80 nor even the 60 hours per week he once did, but this does not represent a desire to scale back. Rather, it reflects the lack of books available in his old haunts, the backwoods antique shops and country auctions. “I’ve been forced to slow down because nothing is available,” he explains.
Ken Leach may be reached at P.O. Box 1561, Brattleborough, Vermont 05302, phone number 802-257-7918. He's always interested to hear from old friends and new ones who love old books. Subscribers to the Americana Exchange Database will now find that 4,000 records from Mr. Leach’s catalogues are included with more to be added through the coming year.
