I always find it fascinating when we sell large collections of ephemera such as magazines, there were a few magazines I collected as a child out of pure interest in the subject matter but the concept that a it could become valuable never entered my brain. I suppose that is how most of these collections started as well. The other thing I sometimes forget about is when sets of books or magazines are sold online they can be quite large. I can imagine the anticipation the buyer is having waiting for their new prize to be delivered, I get excited when a single book arives at my door, imagine 125 kilos of Islamic art….

1. Gedenkweerdige Brasiliaense Zee-en Lant-Reise by Johan Nieuhoff - $6,849
Voyages and Travels into Brazil, and the East Indies by this 17th century Dutch explorer.
2. Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham – $6,000
First edition and first printing of Graham’s legendary book on speculative investing – published in 1934
3. Le Capital by Karl Marx – $5,795
First French edition of Das Kapital, published in 1872 and revised by Marx himself. The English edition, edited by Engels, was based on the French.
4. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - $5,750
True first edition, first printing from 1957 – signed by Ayn Rand
5. Cezanne by Duret, Mirbeau et al – $5,600
First edition 1914, limited to 600 copies, one of 400 printed on Papier a Grain.
6. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson - $4,870
First London edition, published 1883. Includes publisher’s adverts dated October 1883.
7. Hali Magazine (147 issues) – $4,805
A complete run, issues 1 to 147 from 1978 to 1995, of Hali – a London-based magazine devoted to oriental rugs and carpets.
8. On the Anatomy of the Breast by Astley Paston Cooper - $4,729
First edition, published in 1840. Two volumes with 27 lithographed plates. The last book written by the famous English surgeon. *Note first editions available at time of writing
9. The Quran Al-Qur’an of Sultan Mulay Zaidan $4,364
A 1996 Spanish facsimile edition of the 1599 publication from Marrakech, Morocco. Limited pressing of 980 copies.
10. The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus by Nostradamus - $4,300
The first English translation of the works of Nostradamus, printed in 1672. Rebound in leather. *Note link leads to archival reprint

By now you know where this is heading – I did give them each a journal.

For him, I got a journal with a Maltese Falcon cover.  The cover is a replica of  Dashiell Hammett‘s  The Maltese Falcon, 1930 First Edition. The artwork is quite stunning and there was a temptation to buy one for myself.

For her, my choice was The Beginning Runner’s Journal by Laura G. Farres; Sport Medicine Council of British Columbia; Lynda Cannell; Drew Mitchell. This is a diary based on a 13-week program that includes physical preparation, injury prevention, and time management tips, along with photographs and practical exercises. I did actually have one of these for myself until a foot injury made be abandon any running aspirations.

I was impressed at the number of journals that the bookshops had displayed and then I remembered it is that time of year when people are starting new journals for many different reasons and purposes.   (You can see some of the diaries that have been published, and have become collectible, on the AbeBooks homepage carousel.)

For those of you considering keeping a journal (or journals), or if you even just like to browse through them, I thought I’d put together a “collection” of some nice ones that I came across:

The Bronte Sisters Journal

The Jazz Age Journal

States of Mind: A Journal for Mapping Out Your Inner Life

Books to Check Out: A Journal

An auction record was set at Sotheby’s yesterday when a collection of E.H. Shepard‘s original drawings for A.A. Milne‘s Winnie-the-Pooh books sold for approximately £1.3 million ($2 million USD), well above the estimated sale amount. Shepard’s drawing “He went on tracking, and Piglet … ran after him,” also sold at more than double the estimated sales price at £115,250 – a record sales amount for a drawing by a British artist

The popular image of Christopher Robin dragging Pooh by the leg up the stairs, bumped bidders up to the final sales price of £97,250. Again, the final sale price beat expectations.

These sales amounts are a bit surprising given the recent downturn in the fine art market.

Perhaps comfort can be found in cuddly teddy bears after all.

The morning session was given by the ephemera dealers Margolis & Moss, who have dealt in all sorts of “non-book” printed and manuscript material for over 30 years. Bookseller lore is the mythology of the book trade, and like all mythologies, there is a pantheon . . . or rather, there are multiple pantheons which change over time. David and Jean delivered a slightly altered version of a talk they gave to RBMS last month, but I was intrigued to learn of some of the collections they are currently building (19th century trade cards, for instance, and an exciting collection on Mexican tourism from the 1880s to 1968). They have amassed literally tons of material, and some fortunate institution which has the vision and wit to appreciate it (and the pockets to back it up) will benefit greatly by their efforts.

Michael Ginsberg gave a 40-minute presentation on auctions, including the various terms of sale one will likely encounter, auction room etiquette, and some warnings from his long experience in the business (he’s been selling books since 1956). Several other dealers shared some auction stories, and that paved the way to the charity auction in which most of us participated (I placed bids on three lots, but they went out of my range quickly). Forty (40) lots realized about $5,000, which will be sent to the libraries (only for book funds) which have donated materials to the seminar in proportion to their support. Lots were donated by the faculty, and included T-shirts and card set catalogues from Between the Covers; a pristine copy of the catalogue of the Lessing J. Rosenwald collection at the Library of Congress (inscribed by Dan DeSimone, its curator, which was knocked down at $325), a first edition of John Dunning’s The Bookman’s Wake, signed and dated (which brought $180, a bargain); and the sleeper of the sale, a first edition (signed and inscribed presentation copy) of Nicholas Basbanes’ A Gentle Madness, which brought a whopping $550 (two gentlemen really wanted the book, which goes to show that it only takes two to make a great price). But the highest price (which is normal) realized was for two people to attend a gourmet dinner with the faculty—achieved this year at a price of $950 (the record is something like $1,400). We all emerged from this adrenaline rush and went to lunch—and that was the point which was driven home: an auction can create an exhilaration that clouds thought and purpose if one is not careful, so it’s best to be prepared unless you want to emerge like the blinking novice from a casino, dazed and broke.

The indomitable Dan Gregory gave a fast and furious (but dense and effective) presentation on marketing, and later (more importantly for me) on fakes, forgeries, and theft. This session was enough to make us really really nervous about buying.

Upon their inception in the 19th century postcards were simply meant to be a cheap, fast way for people to exchange short messages. However as the decades rolled onward this invention of convenience was transformed into medium of social commentary and an essential aspect of vacationing. From the hills of Hollywood to the beaches in Brighton tourists scrawl “Wish you were here!” on the back left hand side of images taken from the world’s most visited destinations.

The earliest postcards had an undivided back which was entirely reserved for address information forcing the sender to fit their text in the white space on the front next to the image. It took until 1907, nearly 50 years, for the “divided back” card that we see today to come into use in the United States, but when it did the popularity of postcards exploded.

This period from the development of the divided back until the outbreak of World War One has been called The Golden Age of Postcards; and is considered one of the main defining eras. The next era was called the Linen Era and lasted from about 1930 to the early 50s; cards were printed on textured paper similar to linen cloth, which allowed the increased use of bright colours in the designs. Finally by the 1950s the modern “chrome” postcards, which usually contain photos on glossy paper, began to dominate the market and have done ever since.

Throughout these three main eras many smaller and more localized fads ensued. America’s “White Border Era” resulted after World War One and the devastation of Germany’s high end printing industry (which had dominated the Golden Age) as well as high production costs and increased competition in America; the result was the implementation of a thick white border around the picture of American cards to save on ink costs. There were also the French Erotic postcards of the early 1900s, the French and Belgian Hand Tinted cards and the English Seaside or Saucy postcards which were first popularized in the 1930s.

Deltiologists, as postcard collectors are called, collect for a variety of reasons. Some are attracted to a particular era or style of postcard, and for some it is a certain region or topic of interest. A baseball collector might collect postcards related to the sport as a way to augment their interest in the game, or a historian might collect cards from a city or neighbourhood to show how it has changed over the years.

While these factors can affect the value and collectability of cards, sometimes the most dramatic increases can be attributed to what is written on the back of a postcard rather than what was printed on the front. The personal messages and signatures on a postcard from celebrity personalities like Mark Twain or William Burroughs (seen below) can be a final personal touch that book collectors or fans of celebrities seek out as their collections crown jewel; items like these can command thousands of dollars for a single card.

If you are interested you can see the Top 10 most expensive postcards sold on AbeBooks

One thing we don’t talk about in this Avid Reader is newspapers, which can also end up being collectable, though some people are a little more passionate about it then others.