Wednesday, April 19, 2006
A few finds from Boston
I've had a busy and lucrative day today - my customers don't seem to be too angry with me for being closed for the last four days, bless them. Before I leave for the Augusten Burroughs talk tonight (see post below), here are a few items I picked up in Boston. The first: I bought many books for one to five dollars each, off sale carts, because they contained more booksellers' tickets, which I am now completely obsessed with. Here are a few of the twelve tickets I came up with on Monday:
I already have a smaller version of the Gardenside Bookshop ticket, but this new one is over twice as large. I particularly like Judd's, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1845. This may be the oldest ticket I have in my collection. A virtue, apparently: cheap books.
The second item is an almost unreadable novel (I took in the first few pages and couldn't go on) whose cover design I happened to like, because it depicts the view up Park Street toward the Massachusetts State House, and Goodspeed's bookshop was once located in the center of the row of buildings on the right:
The book was three dollars, so I picked it up for sentimental reasons. Goodspeed's occupied several locations around the neighborhood, but this is the one place I pass by again and again, while wondering what books (and patrons, for that matter) passed through those doors. So I bought the book. Here I go, judging books by their covers again, ah well. It's not the first time. I'm sure it won't be the last.
I already have a smaller version of the Gardenside Bookshop ticket, but this new one is over twice as large. I particularly like Judd's, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1845. This may be the oldest ticket I have in my collection. A virtue, apparently: cheap books.
The second item is an almost unreadable novel (I took in the first few pages and couldn't go on) whose cover design I happened to like, because it depicts the view up Park Street toward the Massachusetts State House, and Goodspeed's bookshop was once located in the center of the row of buildings on the right:
The book was three dollars, so I picked it up for sentimental reasons. Goodspeed's occupied several locations around the neighborhood, but this is the one place I pass by again and again, while wondering what books (and patrons, for that matter) passed through those doors. So I bought the book. Here I go, judging books by their covers again, ah well. It's not the first time. I'm sure it won't be the last.
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Those bookseller tickets look really great-do you save them in a keepsake album or put them on display?
Hi Perry - I have a few other tickets from Australia, from Yass, Brisbane, Sydney, and two more from Adelaide. This particular one came out of a British children's book by Charlotte M. Yonge - "The Little Duke" - G. Bell and Sons, London, 1913. The book was five dollars, and has a great decorative cover and good color illustrations in the tradition of Howard Pyle. The ticket was a bonus!
Lady T - I keep them in a stamp collector's stock album with black pages and clear mylar page protectors, so they show up really well. I have them organized by state and country and continent. I also have many at home in my own books, that I leave in the books themselves. I wouldn't remove them from rare books (they are part of the books' history) but from run-of-the-mill used books, or shabby, falling-apart books, I do remove them. Most tickets seem to have been put into 1910-1950s average popular fiction and poetry. Let's just say that it's good that I have hobbies such as this to channel my obsessive personality traits.
WICKED COOL!
i think someone did a book about booksellers tickets...it may have been an oakknoll book. hmmm i will try to remember it.
i think someone did a book about booksellers tickets...it may have been an oakknoll book. hmmm i will try to remember it.
I've got "Booksellers Marks" by Larry Dingman, Dinkytown Antiquarian Bookstore, Minneapolis 1986. Also, the American Antiquarian Society has a small offprint pamphlet entitled "Book Trade Labels at the A.A.S." by Marcus McCorison, 1973. For goodness sake, if you know of any other books, please tell me...
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