Rare Book Monthly

Articles - September - 2008 Issue

A Traditional Cataloguer in Search of the New Collector

Lot 59 online benefits from images.

Lot 59 online benefits from images.


By Bruce McKinney

Thomas, Tom, Cullen, the upstate New York bookseller doing business as the Rockland Bookman in Orchard Park, has issued an interesting catalogue in both traditional and electronic forms that combine affordable and appealing material with up-to-date cataloguing techniques. In traditional form it's his Catalogue 45: Books & Manuscripts, 134 lots and four illustrations. Included in item 59 are 29 individually priced 19th century letterheads from the workshop of Charles Magnus. This catalogue is separately reviewed in Section II. This article focuses on the electronic presentation of the same catalogue. This second version is in color, includes 50 images and 12 footnote files drawn from the Americana Exchange Database of auction, dealer and bibliographic records.

These days the rare and collectible book business is under siege. The audience is always increasing but so too are buyers' choices. What was a concentrated, focused business a few decades ago has become a free-for-all as collectors have moved to the net. Behind the larger number of collectors are two unsettling facts: committed buyers are aging and the next generation of collectors is often finding their material in innovative ways that preclude and elude dealers. For more than a decade now material has been uploaded to listing sites in expectation of sales that often have not occurred. What has inexorably increased have been listing fees and commissions. For many booksellers this is the worst of all worlds: slowing sales, often falling prices and higher costs.

In the midst of this decline it's apparent that dealers who have continued to issue catalogues have done better than those who never did or no longer do. Catalogues have not been a panacea but rather one aspect of a broader strategy to connect with both the older generation and the next. Almost everyone interested in old books is also interested in browsing catalogues. The question has been how to entice the next generation to see them. The old theory was that the collector would find the dealer. Today the onus is on the dealer to find the collector.

To issue catalogues you need focused inventory, command of the language and a knack for enticing description, a reasonably priced printer, and a mailing list. Most dealers have some of the ingredients, only a few all of them. Tom Cullen has all these elements and the need to find the new collector, so he is providing both a traditional catalogue and an augmented one online. He issues several each year.

Recently he released an electronic version in conjunction with his printed presentation and it's interesting to compare these complimentary efforts. Both have 134 lots although the electronic version also offers a break-out of one lot - 45-59, sixteen Charles Magnus maps, views and images. The printed version has been mailed to his list and other copies will be given out at the Rochester Book Fair on September 13th, the ABAA Show in Boston Nov 13-14, and the Ephemera Fair in Connecticut next March [if enough material remains]. The electronic version is available as a stand-alone document in AE's Booksellers Directory, and as an attachment for him to send to interested parties. Every item also comes up in AE's Books of Sale searches and his material is directly accessible to the major search engines.

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

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions