Oak Knoll provides an essential service to the book world. They make a very efficient market in bibliographies and this allows collectors and would-be dealers to wade into their prospective specialties without fear of becoming buried in their reference materials. A few years back I began to put together a collection of Thomas J. Wise material and later decided to focus elsewhere. All the material I put together was easily resold on Abebooks at a profit. That can be very difficult to do with many categories of books. With reference materials it is possible because Oak Knoll makes an efficient market.

I won’t get into the details of these catalogues except to say that if your interest in books falls between the letters A and Z at least some of what you are looking for is in these catalogues. Because the material moves swiftly they maintain a buyer’s wants list. When next they have it they’ll contact you.

Catalogue 30 Americana issued by Michael Brown Rare Books, Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia. Tel: (215) 387-2290, Web address: www.abebooks.com/home/MBAMERICANA.

Mr. Brown continues to produce stunning catalogues and his most recent, # 30, is a page turner containing 369 items that range in price from $30.00 for an impaired if interesting 8 page pamphlet Report of Committee on Statistics of the Schuylkill Valley Manufacturers (item 249) printed in 1868 to $9,500 for An Account of the Rise, Progress and Present State of the Canal Navigation in Pennsylvania(item 214) printed in 1795. In between is a very interesting selection of well described items. For those who collect imprints there is a wealth of obscure material to keep you on the edge of your seat, so plan to be fully engaged for several hours if you are lucky enough to obtain this catalogue. The most expensive piece is printed by Zachariah Poulson, Junior. A casual search of POULSON in the third field of Abebooks’s advanced search finds sixteen items printed by him. A keyword search of the Americana Exchange Database finds 240 matches for anyone who wishes to begin collecting the items printed by Mr. Poulson.

Five Hundred Years of Books issued by Helen R. Kahn & Associates of Montreal, Canada. Tel: (514) 844-5344, Web Address: www.hrkahnbooks.com.

This catalogue covers Five Hundred Years of Books and does it in 146 entries, something close to a record for brevity. The selection of material is international with entries for the South Seas, Middle East, Africa, and Europe demanding equal time with books and pamphlets for North and South America, with an exclamation point on materials north of the 49th parallel. The catalogue is erudite.