Inside the Antique Trade.

Cloth, 8vo, 22 cm, 199 pp. From the blurb: "Much has been written about antiques, but very little has been written about the antique trade itself. Although there are books on almost everything that can be collected, the dealers remain shadowy figures and their operations shrouded in mystery. Inside the Antique Trade helps to dispel this mystery, and also provides a history of the trade, from the days when a dealer was merely an agent acting on behalf of aristocratic dilettantes. Antique dealing as we know it today is hardly more than twenty-five years old. The social gulf that used to divide junk dealers, curio and bric-a-brac dealers, and the handful who called themselves antique dealers, has completely disappeared. Today anyone can become an antique dealer, and the uncertainty of the trade carries a magic quality shared by few others. A painting discovered in an attic can still set one up for life; a mysterious piece of furniture covered with brown paint may still be worth a sizeable sum. No book on the antique trade would be complete without an account of the peripheral figures - the tinkers, the knockers, and the runners. To many dealers it sometimes appears that another peripheral figure is the customer. So much dealing is done within the trade that the customer often tends to be forgotten and dealers have to be reminded that without the customer there would be no antique trade. There are, of course, customers and customers - the private buyers who pretend to be dealers, and the dealers who pretend to be private buyers." Bookplate on front pastedown endpaper, Very Good in Very Good dustwrapper.…