Rare Book Monthly

Articles - January - 2005 Issue

MatchMaker: the keys to book collecting

A recent MatchMaker find:  Old Ulster.  A complete run.

A recent MatchMaker find: Old Ulster. A complete run.


By Bruce McKinney

When you step into a bookstore, visit a bookseller's show or venture onto a selling site you are hoping to find something. Experience has taught you not to expect to find exactly what you want and often you aren't entirely sure what you'll accept. Collectors are compromisers. If you say you are looking for a specific edition of a certain book in perfect condition your spouse does not need to hide the checkbook. That book is not going to be found so quickly. Some collectors however will instinctively accept a second edition or rebound copy. For them the impulse is to "buy" more than to "collect" and their collection simply the accumulation of impulsive purchases. All book collectors want to buy something sometimes and if they don't find what they really want they often end up buying what is really available. AND then they'll hide it! If confronted they might say "I just wanted to buy something" or "I had an itch." In this way book collecting can become a poor investment. But this need not happen because satisfying, efficient collecting is becoming easier. Let me tell you how.

The difference between an unfocused collecting commitment [others may call it something else] and the efficient, cost effective pursuit of that which interests you is simply the difference between focused and unfocused effort. If you are a genius, you can, as Frank Siebert did, simply remember every book you ever see. Or if you are the reincarnation of Wilberforce Eames you'll simply remember every line of every book you ever read. But I'm not, and chances are you're not, a bibliographic polymath. So we employ tools and a new way of thinking about book collecting. Consider this. The sky on a very clear night may show a million bright stars. Okay, you can find the Big Dipper but that doesn't make you an astronomer. You instinctively know there is a lot to understand about astronomy. Books are the same way. For a moment let's peek at the night sky of old and used books. It's ABE [www.abebooks.com]. There you'll find sixty million stars. Or look on eBay. Every minute of every day eBay auctions are ending and others are beginning. ABE is as big as the Pacific Ocean. eBay runs as fast and as relentlessly as the Colorado River. And then there is the world of traditional book auctions. Here the flow is slower and deeper. This past year there were 279 documented auctions. Subscribe for their catalogues? Absolutely, but you can't read them all. You'll need a staff of three to do that, a warehouse to store them and it still won't work because it's too slow.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: ALDROVANDI, Ulisse (1522-1605) - [Opera omnia]. Bologna: Bellagamba, Benacci, Bonomi, Tebaldini, Ferroni, 1599-1668. €22.000-€28.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-1695) - Fables Choisies. Parigi: Claude Barbin, 1668. €7.000-€10.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000
  • Sotheby's
    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
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    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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