Rare Book Monthly
An Old Fashioned Book Seller: An Interview with Harold Nestler
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Mr. Nestler guides me through the shelves, pointing out New York State reference collections, current inventory, customer and inventory files, etc. Seeing the customer files prompts me to ask another question.
AT: Is it your sense that there are still customers out there for you?
HN: Good question. I have been having trouble getting new names for my mailing list. Part of this is because a lot of my customers are elderly, and are sadly passing away, succumbing to Alzheimer’s and like diseases, and/or just reappraising and taking stock of their finances and tightening the belt. In the past I have sold a lot to libraries, but sometimes when librarians and library administrations change, you lose business. This happened to me recently at a local library which had always been a steady customer. Until now.
Things change. Collectors pass away, and new ones come on the scene. They may, however, do their buying mainly from the internet.
AT: Do you have any plans to commemorate this 50th anniversary of your book business?
HN: No, I don’t. At my age I’m slowly phasing out of the business. I’m not pushing for new customers, though I won’t push them away if they come to me.
On the way out I notice a printed sign, with some typescript above, taped to the end of one of the basement bookshelves. It says, in typescript, “Harold Nestler has a terminal illness.” Below that, in print, the sign reads: “”Bookselling is a disease…once it is in the blood, you never lose it. Thomas Joy.”
Harold Nestler’s memoir, Where Did You Find That?: Adventures of An Antiquarian Bookman, is self published in a signed limited edition and is available directly from Harold Nestler. It costs $20.00, plus $2.00 for shipping and handling. His Bibliography of the New York State Communities has been republished by Heritage Press and is available from them (Heritage Press, 1540E Pointer Ridge Place, Bowie, MD, 20716, (301) 390-7709). (Pricing information was not available at press time.) Some 40 to 50 of Mr. Nestler’s New York State catalogues are available on CD-ROM as Encyclopedia of New York State Ephemera and Americana from Hope Farm Press, 252 Main Street, Saugerties, NY, 12477, (800)-883-5778,www.hopefarm.com. They cost $35.00, plus shipping.
Harold Nestler, no fan of the internet, can be reached by regular mail at: Harold Nestler, 13 Pennington Road, Waldwick, N.J., 07463 or by phone at (201) 444-7413. He cautions that he has no answering machine, so that if readers get no answer they should keep on trying him. Eventually they’ll get through.
