Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2013 Issue

Yves S. - A Reasonable Pessimist

Book collectors, like old books, are aging rapidly.

Book collectors, like old books, are aging rapidly.

Yves S. is a well-educated man who could be described as a reasonable passionate: “Many people in the old books business are poets,” he smiles, “or old guys.” And Yves S. is neither one nor the other. Aged 35, he is a down to earth collector who always tries to buy at the best price, spending hours behind his computer screen to spot the best books worldwide. He even launched a website, and wrote a few studies over this allegedly dying niche market, old books.

 

Books are not cool

 

When you tell your friends you collect old books, they imagine a pile of moist and dirty paper, eaten by rats in a dusty cellar. That’s how people see books in France, like an old sour-tempered guy's pastime; books aren’t glamour any more.” Yves S. is a lucid man who bought his first 18th century book when he was still a teenager: “It was the abridged History of Henault,” he recalls, “a wonderful book that still features among my all time favourites—I’ve read it six times.” Yves is fond of history books—but not all history books. “I read all the books I buy, and I never keep a boring reading, no matter how rare it is.” He also thinks highly of Velly, Villaret & Garnier’s History of France (1767-1786): “History books that stick to facts are usually boring, and there are a lot of them—I love Garnier’s book for the sociological discussions it contains.” When the author goes straight to the point just like the Duke of Saint Simon—Louis XIV was a man of mediocre intelligence, read the forewords of his works— it is even better. “I love books that deal with the evolutions of society that led to the French Revolution in 1789; also those that criticize the system from inside.” Curiously, he doesn’t like Voltaire—whom he defines through a handful of plays nobody reads any more, and “a nice little novel”, Candid, or the Philosophes des Lumières, but he sure appreciates the bad faith of Bussy Rabutin. “I guess he was an awful man... But his writings are brilliant!" It is even more pleasant to find a work of Necker bearing the arms of his worst enemy, the Comtesse de Provence; or Les Liaisons Dangereuses with those of Marie-Antoinette (which lies on a shelf of the NLF). As you might have guessed, Yves S. enjoys life’s ironies.

 

 

Family Reason

 

The history told in the books Yves S. collects was never really his, or his family’s—indeed, he is from an ordinary linage. Thus, he enjoys the ironic situation: “In those days, I couldn’t have possessed a book with arms—I would have been sent to the gallows right away,” he laughs. Books have always been present in Yves’ family, though. His father still collects architecture books, for instance. And he does it his own way, trying to replicate the famous Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection and its 160 must-have titles.“He’s got one hundred so far,” tenderly smiles his son. Books seem to be a way to share some good times with his father, as they discuss their next purchases together. And they always keep a cool head. “I leave some 300 orders a year, to buy 2 or 3 books,” confesses Yves. “I always leave very low orders—and when I win, it’s always a good bargain. Money is too hard to earn to be spent stupidly. And I watch auctions all over the world, especially in America where there is less competition over French books.” But can a collector be wise; or a passionate reasonable? Yves loves La Rochefoucauld’s maxims too much to ignore that collecting old books, like everything else, is an egotistic pastime. “We buy books because they give a good image of ourselves. In our distorted minds, the value of our books equals our own value.” Thus, it would be vain to think one is able to keep his passions under control; but they still can be regulated.

 

Study Downfall

 

Yves works for an international company and hardly understands how people behave in the book business. To him, most booksellers are poets—and it sounds a bit paternalistic in his mouth. They are not logical enough, so they usually get nowhere fast. Yves is different, a logical man. As a matter of fact, he has mathematically studied the old books market, made some prospects just like in any ordinary business. He’s collected lists of clients from various booksellers, got close to several auction houses like Sotheby’s or Christie’s, has analysed their results, inquired about the biggest booksellers of Paris, and eventually launched his own website that gives access to many booksellers' catalogues and to a calendar of upcoming auctions. And he made conclusions. “I’ve found out that there are between 2 and 4,000 people who buy old books in France. I even estimated the total value of old books in France to 60 billions euros—most of it lying in the National Library of France, of course.” All these calculations made a pessimistic book lover out of him: “Book lovers, just like booksellers, are isolated, and generally confined to their own fields of interest. It is very hard to federate them. Furthermore, they are mostly old people who will die soon. Nobody really cares about books. Our elites are turned towards mathematics exclusively. I work with a lot of these guys—they don’t know anything about history, not to mention literature—and they don’t give a damn; they don’t even pretend. Nowadays, you don’t send a positive message when you say you love books.” About the impressive—and apparently successful—book fair of Le Grand Palais, set up every year by the SLAM, he says that it costs a lot and that it only attracts old guys. “I think that within the next two generations, nobody will buy old books any more.” But reason isn’t always a guarantee of success—or the vector of truth. And though busy and logically built, Yves’ website hasn’t kept all his promises.

 

Booksellers

 

Times are hard, indeed. Not for old books only. And we all know that culture suffers the most during crisis. Yves S. knows of a man who used to work as an executive director and who left everything to become a bookseller. “He’s happy. He says he makes almost as much money as he used to... But I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes when he retires. I finance a bookseller myself; I pay for his investments. He makes no money at all. I tell you, a lot of them are poets.” And there would be no future in the book business. “Well, my studies show that books over 5,000 euros tend to get more and more expensive, while those under 500 euros are losing value by the hour. The problem is that the latter represent the vast majority of the market—they suffer from two factors. First, the booksellers’ margins are too important. They need to make a 150% margin to survive, because of taxes. But buyers don’t care, and buy from the same source: auctions. Second, the Internet has unbalanced the supply and demand equilibrium, and prices are going down. It is so easy to access books nowadays, that the role of booksellers is more and more questioned.” There are still a lot of booksellers around, no? “Yes, and they don’t live good”, underlines Yves S.

But fortunately, unlike reasonable men, poets don’t live from bread alone... but from old books too.

 

 

Thibault Ehrengardt

dreadzine@free.fr

More articles: reliuresetdorures.blogspot.fr

 

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
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    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
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    Ketterer, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
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    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
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    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
  • Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
    Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
    Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
    Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
    Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
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    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
    Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
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    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
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    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
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    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
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    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
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    Antique prints, paintings and maps
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    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
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    Antique prints, paintings and maps
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    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€

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