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I've recently had occasion to gather and read several decades of old AB Bookman's Weekly's and AB Yearbooks (more on this in another post). But last night I came across the ad to the left (click for full view) from 1984's AB Yearbook and was reminded that in only about five weeks, dozens of booksellers (with the occasional collector and librarian) will gather again in Colorado Springs for the annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, also known colloquially as "bootcamp for booksellers." The Seminar has been held continuously for the past 32 years and provides "an opportunity for leading specialists to share their expertise and experience [...] in a comprehensive survey of the rare book market, both antiquarian and modern." For those wanting more details, a list of highlights as well as a schedule of this year's events and topics can be found on the Seminar's (recently redesigned) website. Perhaps even better however, of the Seminar's more than 2000 graduates, many over the last few years have shared their experiences online. From fellow FB&C blogger Chris Lowenstein's ringing endorsements to day-by-day wraps-ups of the last two years, there are numerous accounts of Seminar experiences from many points-of-view, and as far as I can tell, all overwhelmingly positive.

I attended in 2006, and as I have written several times in different places, it was quite simply the best thing I ever did for my business:

It is no exaggeration to say that the Seminar easily saved me two or three years of effort and learning on my own. Between the advice given, information bestowed, contacts made, and inspiration received it is an investment in time and money well worth making. Indeed, in the years since I attended I have made back what I spent on my trip many times over simply through the books I've sold to people whom I met via the Seminars. 

In other words, the Seminar is well worth the expense of attending. And then some.

But while it's true the Seminar was the best thing I ever did for my business, it is perhaps even more true that it was quite simply one of the most enjoyable week's of my life. I have rarely laughed harder or had a better time than I did in Colorado. I made close friends I have kept to this day. And it was a joy to be among so many people who share the same -- rather esoteric -- passion.

So go. It's not too late to register. Go to make more money (if you're a bookseller). Go to deepen your knowledge and appreciation of books and their history. Go to make friends with people who love books as much as you do. Go to learn from some of the best in the business. Seriously, just go.
Earlier this week, I posted a press release on our website about the upcoming Yale Library exhibit of Richard Minsky's book art. Although Richard has been featured on the pages of FB&C before, and many of you are well aware of his work, I wanted to ask Richard a few more questions about the exhibit and his recent projects. Enjoy our e-interview below.

This is also the perfect opportunity to announce that Richard has agreed to be our new book arts columnist, beginning in our fall issue. We're thrilled to have him join our esteemed group of columnists!

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FB&C: The earliest piece in the exhibit is a sample book you used when you started tinkering with letterpress at the age of 13. How did you become interested in printing and book arts at such an early age?

RM: I was fortunate to have Mr. (Joseph) Caputo as Graphic Arts Shop teacher at Russell Sage Jr. High in Forest Hills, Queens in 1959. He was of the generation of inspirational teachers who came into the public school system during the Depression. That was where I learned hand type composition, lockup, makeready, and platen press operation, on both Pilot (hand) presses and the motorized 10x15 Chandler & Price.

The following year my mother died of cancer. My father had died two years earlier of a heart attack. Living with my grandmother on Social Security did not provide enough income, and I realized then, at age 13, that I'd best do what I love with my life, and that was printing. So I bought a 5x8 Kelsey hand press and 6 cases of used foundry type. With that I started a job printing business, and hired my homeroom class as a 15%-commission sales team.

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FB&C: Your Self-Portrait is also included. This is an oil-on-canvas self-portrait, but the painting itself then became the subject of a limited edition book you printed about the evolution of a piece of art. Which idea came first, or did you always think of it as one large project?

RM: Richard Roth was curating an exhibition titled Local Self Portraits for the Hudson Opera House, here in Hudson, NY, and asked me for one. At first I thought of providing one of my autobiographical books, Minsky in London or Minsky in Bed, but that would involve either borrowing an existing copy from a collection, making one for the show, or framing a page or chapter to hang on the wall. I had not been drawing or painting recently, but had been thinking about getting back to it, so instead I bought a pre-stretched 16 x 20 canvas and started drawing in pencil. The first sketch was nice, and had a good feeling, but didn't really look enough like me, so I took a snapshot, erased much of it and re-drew. After doing that several times the likeness was close enough and I switched to oils. About then I started seeing it as a book. In the end, it is the book that is the work of art, and that is what is in the exhibition.

FB&C: The 50 years covered in this exhibit (1960-2010) witnessed substantial change in printing technologies. You have embraced this in your work -- using letterpress on some projects, inkjet on others -- while others tend to 'choose a side' in this debate. Tell me about that.

RM: Sometimes I use several processes on the same surface. Whatever works best. The cover of my second volume on American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929 has an inkjet print on canvas done on an Epson R1800 that is then die-stamped in 22K gold on a 10-ton Kensol hot press. There's more. I've worked with mimeograph, Rexograph (spirit duplicator), Xerox, laser printers, and offset presses. In the 1970s I taught printmaking at The School of Visual Arts, which involved etching, screenprinting, and stone lithography. This fall I'll be teaching a course at SUNY's Purchase College titled Experimental Book. Here's the description:

Experimental Book
VDE 4600 / 4 credits / Fall
Students are encouraged to reconsider what a book is and expand the boundaries of the traditional codex book through workshops in experimental formats, integration of word and image, form and content, sequencing, and physical structure. This may include a variety of projects and the study of video and film structure, historical and contemporary artists' books, and innovative trade books.

FB&C: Yale acquired the Minsky archive in 2004. Is this the first major exhibition of the material since then?

RM: Yes, they have just finished cataloging it.

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FB&C: Is it possible, as an artist, to have a favorite piece of one's own work? (If so, what it is?)

RM: I love them all. Doing it is what excites me--seeing a metaphor materialize in my hands. That said, right now the most captivating is Freedom of Choice: Three Poems of Love and Death by Lucie Brock-Broido. Two poems are about shotgun suicide and one is about an electrocution. The printing is inkjet on handmade paper, in a goatskin binding chained to an oak electric chair. On the back of the chair is a cabinet containing a 20 gauge shotgun, a Manila hangman's noose, a wakizashi sword, razor blades, poison, and a hypodermic syringe. An MP3 player on the head restraint plays my reading of the poems. You can see how it was constructed at http://minsky.com/choice-details.htm.

Images, top to bottom: Minsky's binding of Nineteen Eighty-Four (2003) on exhibit at Yale; the limited edition of Minsky's Self-Portrait (2010); Minsky's Freedom of Choice (2009). Courtesy of Richard Minsky. 

Jonathan Shipley

Jonathan Shipley is a freelance writer living in Seattle. He’s written for the Los Angeles Times, Gather Journal, Uppercase, and many other publications.

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Indeed, it's elementary for you to own yourself a copy of A Study of Scarlet, the first appearance of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed character, Sherlock Holmes, if you have a chunk of change in your pocketbook. Particularly the copy that will be auctioned shortly at Sotheby's - London. It is the only known inscribed copy, apart from the author's own, of the first printing of A Study of Scarlet.

Wow. Booktryst discusses it some, here...

There are only three signed or inscribed copies recorded of this monument in  the detective genre of literature, one of the rarest and most highly sought books of modern times, (only twenty copies in U.S. and British libraries and merely eleven in private hands) a volume keenly desired by Doyle and/or detective fiction collectors all over the world: the author's copy, currently in the possession of the Estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle (the author's youngest daughter, who died in 1997); that under notice; and a copy at Yale's Beineke Library. The copy at the Beineke Library, tragically however, was mutilated, its inscribed page excised at some point prior to March 2003, when the crime was discovered. This, then, is one of only two signed or inscribed copies known to exist.

Christie's London will be auctioning the first part of what they're calling "the most valuable collection of illuminated manuscripts ever offered at auction" on 7 July. The first 48 lots from theArcana Collection, comprising illuminated manuscripts and incunabula, are estimated to fetch £11-16 million. The collector has been identified as Ladislaus von Hoffmann, a Washington financier who is on the board of trustees at the Morgan Library & Museum (among other organizations), and founded the Arcana Foundation, Inc.

A neat thing about this sale is that Christie's has included short audio clips from experts about selected lots; you can find these underneath the images in the lot descriptions.

You know it's an important sale when a Nuremberg Chronicle (in Latin) is among the ten lots with the lowest expected estimates; it's listed at £28,000-35,000. Another copy of theNuremberg Chronicle, this one a German copy with rich contemporary illuminations and binding, is estimated at £120,000-160,000.

I'll preview a few of the items from this sale, but the one that really excites me is Lot 5, Jean Grolier's copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Aldus Manutius: Venice, 1499). It's in a Gommar Estienne binding done for Grolier (c. 1552-1555), and post-Grolier owners include Alexandre Albert François, Prince de Bournonville; the great English bibliophile George John, 2nd Earl Spencer; and the John Rylands Library in Manchester (with Spencer's collection; it was deaccessioned and sold at Sotheby's, 1988).

Interestingly, Grolier owned at least five copies of the Hypnerotomachia, including one other bound by Estienne. Thomas Frognall Dibdin wrote about this copy in his work on Earl Spencer's collection, calling it "the most perfect specimen of the press of Aldus. ... Everything in it conspires to charm the tasteful collector [and to] delight and gratify the judgment of the Virtuoso. ... The present copy ... is perhaps unrivalled for its size and beauty." This beautiful book, with a most fascinating pedigree, is estimated to sell for £220,000-260,000.

The lot which rates the top estimate is the Abbey Bible, a fabulously-illuminated manuscript on vellum (Bologna, 1260s) produced for use in a Dominican convent. It's estimated at £2.5-3.5 million. Another top lot is expected to be a book of hours/psalter produced for Elizabeth de Bohun (England, 14th century) and later owned by members of the Astor family. Its estimate is £2-3 million.

Among the other important illuminated manuscripts are the Cauchon Hours, made in the mid-15th century for a noble family of Rheims. This is estimated at £800,000-1,200,000. A book of hours produced for François I (1539-40) by the Master of François de Rohan rates an estimate of £300,000-500,000.

Incunabula include the first edition in Italian of Pliny's Historia naturalis (Venice, 1476), with illuminations; Adrianus Brielis' edition of Hieronymus' Epistolae (Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 7 September 1470), printed on vellum, with contemporary Schoeffer-workshop decoration. This has passed through the libraries of Sir Thomas Phillipps and Countess Doheny. It's estimated at £800,000-1,200,000. A copy of the first Italian illustrated version of Boccaccio's Decameron, bound with Masuccio's Novellino (both 1492), is estimated at £220,000-280,000. Another Boccaccio work, De claris mulieribus (1473), one of the first works printed at Ulm (and the first illustrated book published there), is expected to sell for £250,000-350,000.

This is going to be a fascinating sale to watch as these amazing and unique items change hands. I'll be sure to have a report once the hammer comes down.

Later sales from the Arcana Collection will include Books and Manuscripts, and Old Master Prints.
Book dealer and colleague John Waite posted the following poignant account of his experiences at this past weekend's Cooperstown Book Fair to the ABAA's private email discussion list. I enjoyed it so much I asked if he would mind my sharing it here as well. I'm very pleased he agreed.

Most book fairs are neither good nor bad, just well organized and run... or not. The Cooperstown fair is one of the former. Housed in an attractive, well-lit athletic and recreational facility not far from the Baseball Hall of Fame, the fair has been held during the latter part of June for many years, more or less standing its ground in the face of declining enthusiasm for book fairs generally. A mostly regional event organized by dealers Will Monie and Ed Brodzinsky, Cooperstown stays in the game like a perennial minor league player who just isn't ready to quit. As is the case with every book fair some exhibitors do well, some don't, but most return for another year.

Yesterday when I left Vermont to begin the four-hour drive to Cooperstown, I hadn't gone more than 15 miles south on I-91 when I noticed a large dog, maybe some kind of yellow lab mix, wandering on the highway in the sad way that dogs do when they are lost or abandoned. He seemed to be making his way north, stopping and tentatively looking this way and that before continuing. Whenever I see dogs walking aimlessly by themselves, the sight depresses me. So the trip to Cooperstown did not begin in the most auspicious way.

On the way I stopped to preview two country auctions, left bids on one or two things at each, and continued my drive. I also made impromptu stops at a used bookstore in Vermont and an antique shop in Glens Falls, NY, neither of which yielded any finds. My four-hour drive had by then had worked into a nearly seven hour safari, and I was still more than a half-hour from Cooperstown when I decided to have dinner, even though stopping then precluded even dropping off my books before the Friday set-up closed at 8 p.m. I checked into my room at KC's motel in East Springfield, 15 miles north of Cooperstown, about 7:45 that evening, got out my laptop to check my email and look-up a few items, phoned my wife, and called it a day.

This morning I left the hotel early to go set up. I took the less-traveled Route 31 on the east side of the lake south towards Cooperstown. On the way I passed a handmade road sign that read in red letters "Thou Shalt Not Steal." It was kind of strange since at that very moment I had been mulling over how much I had recently offered someone for a book that I probably wasn't going to get. Much later it occurred to me that I should have stopped and taken the sign. I was at the fair by 7 a.m., arriving almost in tandem with Will Monie, who kindly helped me unload. Because I usually travel without a lot of material compared to most book dealers, I quickly set-up and in little more than a half-hour was out on the floor nosing around. Because I'm currently long on receivables and short on cash, I had little money to spend. I didn't see much that I wanted to buy, except for a protectionist-themed 19th century fabric broadside with edges in red, white & blue in support of American Labor and American Industry. If I had been more flush with cash, I would have purchased it by myself. As it happened, another dealer liked it too, so we bought it together.

That turned out to be the high point of the fair for me, at least for business. I managed to sell one item to the trade for a full one-third discount, but it didn't even cover the $225 investment for my half-booth. On the other hand, I enjoyed talking with other dealers, including an older man I had not met before who had served for nearly a decade as a US consular official in Pakistan in the 1950s. He told stories of working on commerce issues in Lahore and traveling with a military escort to meet tribal chieftains in Waziristan. In the decades since he had built a considerable library of books on Central and South Asia, in which he now trades.

At the end of the day, it was just another day. I took the most direct route home and returned after a little more than four hours. About three miles from my exit on the interstate, I noticed an animal dead on the right shoulder of the highway. At first I figured it was a deer with the light red-tan coat they wear in early summer. Then I realized it was the dog I saw yesterday just a few miles further south. Confused, lost, and probably not paying much attention, he had walked in front of a car or truck. I felt sickened for a moment then thought, apropos of nothing, that this dog's end might be a metaphor for something. Then I thought maybe it ought to be a metaphor for making metaphors.
The trial of Raymond Scott continued this week in Newcastle. Folger librarian Richard Kuhta testified about Scott's arrival at the library with the stolen folio, noting that the man's entrance was very much a memorable one: 

"He was dressed in tropical clothing; he had on a kind of oversized tee shirt with a very large fish on the front, lightweight slacks and loafers with no socks and a lot of jewellery - rings and bracelets. 

"He apologised for his clothing and said if he'd had time he'd have worn a suit, but that he'd just flown in from Cuba, where he had a villa. 

"He said he liked to fish there and that he was a person of independent means. 

"He said he'd inherited his father's construction building supplies business and had sold it and as a result he was very comfortably off. 

"He said he had something to show me." 

That something was a First Folio, which Scott casually pulled out of a messenger bag. Kuhta told the court he "was startled by the way in which the book was being handled and by the sudden realisation that the man seemed to know it was a first edition." When Kuhta realized that Scott had brought in the stolen Durham University folio, he said, "My heart sank. It was a feeling of sadness to think we were dealing with stolen property. The collections are what we live for, preserving them, building them, making them accessible. It is an emotional thing in our world, the loss and recovery of this precious material." 

The trial resumes on Tuesday, presumably with more witnesses for the prosecution.
It may be hard to believe, but there once was a time, not that long ago, when diligent students looked forwarded to receiving (wait for it...) a book in recognition of their commitment to scholarship.

So-called prize books have routinely been awarded to top scholars in a variety of disciplines since the 16th century, though the past century has seen a precipitous decline in such awards.  (These prize books should not be confused with today's Harvard Book Prize or Yale Book Award or similar prizes awarded by other university alumni associations, none of which are awarded for work done at those institutions.)

Prize books today are collected less for their texts than for their bindings and other matters of scholarly interest:

The research interest is usually not in the individual text of the prize, but rather in the type of text selected, the type of student honored, and the aesthetic attempts in dressing up the prize by means of a special binding, bookplate, calligraphic inscription, etc.

The above comes from the introduction to the Dr. G. J. Brouwer Collection of Dutch Prize Bindings and the William B. Todd Collection of Prize Books at the University of Texas.  (A catalog of the latter collection, some 750 prize books dated 1644-1959 from primarily English, Irish and Scottish schools, was published in 1961.)

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Prize book bindings often incorporate the coat-of-arms of the relevant school, or of the municipality within which such school is located.  The example to your right was awarded by the Latin School in Leiden in the 17th century. Now held by the National Library of New Zealand, the binding

shows Pallas Athene holding a shield containing the arms of that city. It is bound in typical style and includes endbands on the spine in cream and faded pink thread, silk ties alternately pink and white at the fore-edge, and red-sprinkled edges. Thus the red and white colours of the Leiden coat of arms are represented on the whole binding.

A Latin school existed in Leiden from at least the second half of the 13th century, becoming the town school from 1356. From 1586 books were awarded to the best pupils at the half-yearly examinations; folio formats (the largest size) for the top two classes, and quartos and octavos (smaller volumes) for the rest....

Folks interested in collecting Dutch prize book bindings may want to consult a copy of Spoelder's Prijsboeken op de Latijnse school. Een studie naar het verschijnsel prijsuitreiking en prijsboek op de Latijnse scholen in de Noordelijke Nederlanden ca. 1585-1876, met een repertorium van wapenstempels (2000). The definitive reference, its almost 900 pages thoughtfully includes an English-language summary.  (Latin schools provided the equivalent of a pre-university education.)

Because prize books are not avidly pursued by many book collectors, such books often can be obtained for very little money.  (This is not true of particularly early or especially outstanding examples.)  A diligent search (utilizing, perhaps, the help of a specialist independent bookseller) may prove to be quite rewarding....
 
The relationship between book dealers and librarians can often be a bit like that between siblings. We both may come from the same family of book lovers, but that doesn't mean there's not some rivalry or even occasional conflict. This is probably inevitable. After all, institutions and booksellers are often competing for the same materials, and each approaches those materials with differing perspectives and goals. Dealers are ultimately looking to make a profit, while institutions are charged with stewarding materials and making them available for the coming generations.

The annual conference of RBMS, the Rare Book and Manuscript Section of the ALA (American Librarian's Association) was held this week in Philadelphia, and as has been the case for the past several years the ABAA sponsored both the event's opening reception and the Bookseller's Showcase -- a sort of mini book fair, where about 30 rare book dealers display a selection of their wares for a critical mass of some of our most important customers: rare book librarians and special collections curators. It's an opportunity for dealers and librarians to meet and discuss common goals and interests, as well as to explore ways we can work together.

This year was my first exhibiting at RBMS and overall I found the event deeply heartening, not only to be among colleagues and fellow book-lovers, but to be reminded of the enormous diversity of holdings and collections in rare book rooms around the country. I heard about collections of illustrated bibles, Victorian scrapbooks, and Vietnam "reimaginings." I learned about books in surprising places (did you know the US Naval Academy at Annapolis is the repository of seven incunabula?). While it's often the bigger institutions and collections (author archives, etc.) that get most of the press, this event amply demonstrated that there are hundreds and hundreds of growing and evolving archives and collections on all manner of topics at all manner of colleges, universities, and other institutions. 

And if there was one common refrain from those building these collections, it was that too often they are being woefully under-utilized. I met many librarian deeply committed to bringing their world more and more into the curriculum of their schools and classrooms.

Unfortunately, another theme often heard was funding and budget cuts, of furloughs and threatening lay-offs. But for every tone of worry, there was also a note of optimism -- a growing collection, a newly-endowed fund -- even if only tentative. And most hopeful of all were the number of younger, creative, and eager librarians in attendance. It bodes well for the future of our special collections.

For those wanting a fuller taste of this year's event, my colleague Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis booksellers has been posting daily updates on his blog. And for an even fuller idea of what the conference is all about, audio and PDFs from last year's RBMS have been posted on the conference website.

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The John Steinbeck archive, which went on the block Wednesday in Bloomsbury's Travel, Literature, Autographs, and Fine Books sale, sold poorly. Seen here is lot #180 -- scarce, unrevised galley proofs of The Grapes of Wrath went under estimate for $7,500 (exclusive of buyer's premium). His Nobel Prize correspondence? Also low, at $2,800. More than half of the Steinbeck lots went unsold. The total sale was $73,950, well below the estimated $200,000-250,000.

According to the press release, the collection "consists of the contents of the John Steinbeck archive gathered from the apartment in New York City that he and his third wife, Elaine, shared for thirteen years. The items include many important autograph manuscripts, voluminous correspondence, several inscribed illustrated works including original drawings and photographs. Steinbeck's personal library comprising some 500 books, including first editions, presentation copies, many with his rubber stamp as well as later presentation copies to Elaine Steinbeck, is offered as a stand-alone group..."

Read more from the AP, with a photo slide show.
About two weeks ago I received a mailer from Bonhams to promote its June 23rd Fine Books & Manuscripts sale. I was intrigued to see Dard Hunter's Papermaking by Hand in America (1950) as a featured item, with an estimate of $5,000-8,000. The sale also included a number of other Dard Hunter titles. Dard is a fascinating figure in the history of American printing, and FB&C readers may recall an excellent piece Karen Edwards wrote for us back in March (text online).

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When the results came in today, I was blown away by the numbers. Papermaking by Hand... (1950) went for a paltry $854 -- what a steal! On the other hand, one of his more obscure titles, Chinese Ceremonial Papers, printed at the Mountain House in 1937, brought in $4,575. Old Papermaking (1923) also did well, for $4,270. But Dard's first solo printing/publishing project, The Etching of Figures, (on which Edwards wrote, "Although Hunter didn't write the book--William Bradley was the author--it's still recognized today as the world's first one-man book.") left Bonhams for $244. That stings. Some lots went unsold, including this lovely signed limited edition put together by Dard Hunter II: The Life Work of Dard Hunter: A Progressive Illustrated Assemblage of his Works as Artist, Craftsman, Author, Papermaker, and Printer. Chillicothe, Ohio: Mountain House Press, 1981-83. It had an estimate of $6,000-9,000.