NOW We're Talking!

 

As we speak, books in white banker  boxes dance with books in brown cardboard cartons in the garage, a sight I have not enjoyed since last winter when we found ourselves tramping through the dark heart of January to buy books on a semi-truck.. At least this time there was no climbing involved, no shivering, no hands the color of boiled lobsters, no skating over glazed tree roots, and, the best part of all, no uglies -- just the good, the bad, and the very good.  It may not seem like it, but this is HUGE. We always get some uglies – remember Ugly House a couple years ago? Well, this time we finally bought our books in a sedate and pleasing atmosphere. And get this --  none of them smelled bad or littered the floor with pieces of themselves. Now that’s what I call PROGRESS!

Of course all these books weren’t free and we did spend a lot of money, but it was a great deal and  I have zero regrets. I don’t know how many boxes we’ve gone through because Eric unloaded quite a few and transferred the books to the shelves in the garage. From there I’ve listed 58 online and taken 32 to the antiques mall. So far I’ve sold two – one at each venue – but both were decent sales, if a bit odd. I have beautiful architecture books, a special limited edition of the 1937 Audubon Birds of America in mint condition, a slipcased  pristine copy of the first modern printing of Catlin’s Drawings of the North American Indians as they were rendered in pencil with their accompanying notes in his sketchbook., and  much Ohioana and ephemera. But what did I sell? A book about the New England Society in Cleveland from the early 1930’s and another about the Pittsburgh Glass Company, also from the early 30’s. The latter was a thing of beauty though – fabulous pictures. I sold it once before a few years ago on ebay, but that was back in the day when the bay knew how to play nice with others.

 

 

To say that I feel a sense of optimism right now is a massive understatement of the highest order when  the garage is so pleasingly full and  only half of what we bought is even here yet. We have to go back and get the rest next week or maybe  the week after. Meanwhile I love the way I look at a shelf and immediately pick out maybe two good titles and then later go back to the same shelf and awaken several sleepers. A perfect example of the latter  is my favorite ephemera piece – a scarce item about the Mayflower Hotel in Akron. My parents had their wedding breakfast there in 1949, but for me it’s forever linked with summer when the Soap Box Derby came to town. The press, WHLO radio, a band, and pretty high school cheerleaders and majorettes gathered outside the hotel and as each racer pulled up in front  (in those days they were all boys) music played, the girls kissed the  would-be conquering heroes, and Akron’s biggest summer event was officially launched. The building still stands, but the grand Mayflower receded into history which makes my wonderful find all the more meaningful.

 

 

 

In the midst of this joy, however, my husband’s secretary of 36 years suddenly died, so there were a few days of shock,  incredulity, and sadness. But with it came a monumental sense of  NOW. At the service the rent-a-minister (who was quite icky) said over and over that the woman he had never met “squeezed every drop out of each moment.” I wish it were true but I don’t believe it. None of us really do that, but some of us try hard. I’m a trier and I’m going tto try even harder now, though I must say that my work as a bookseller has been the most fulfilling job of my life aside from  raising my children.

And that’s precisely why I’m either whirling, twirling and throwing confetti, or whining like a gnat in your ear!

The Difference of a Day

I‘m sorry I’m so slow to post these days. It finally occurred to me yesterday that I’ve slammed into a brick wall as far as the house is concerned. Since July 3rd I’ve joked and whined about the dust, noise, and inconvenience, but yesterday I realized that I’m really not laughing anymore. I’m edgy, jittery, behind on everything , and hostile around the periphery of my entire being which I think may be declaring a revolution soon if something doesn’t give. Yesterday after a couple of hours of intense cleaning Eric and I poured a glass of wine, ignited the fireplace, and agreed that we have to give WBC an end-date or we’ll still be in shambles by the holidays. We decided on October 31st, which from this vantage point seems like eons from now, but may not seem that way to WBC. All I know is I cannot do this anymore. I really, truly, honestly CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE.

That being said, we did hit two estate sales over the weekend, one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. The Saturday one started on Friday, but I didn’t recognize the town name and thought it was much farther than it was, though God knows it’s far enough. My antiques dealer friend Darwin nudged me on Facebook later that afternoon asking why I skipped a sale boasting a 50 year collection of Civil War books. So bright and early the next morning we braved the long and winding road even though I felt sure that the books had been snapped up faster than bacon strips tossed at a junkyard dog. Had things been normal I would likely have been right. But things were not even close to normal. In fact, they were so BIZARRE that I’ve never in all these years of estate sale going experienced anything even remotely like them.

At two minutes to showtime we WERE the line. But an elderly woman came to the door and said she would open only when it was exactly ten o’clock. It was a little weird, especially seeing as how no one had asked her for a two minute advantage over the people who weren’t there, but whatever. Inside an army of worker bees – far more than needed for a small ranch house – took their posts like sentinels while the elderly lady held court in front of the bookcase giving us the hard sell and telling the workers what to do. At first I thought she owned the estate company, but, no, she owned the STUFF! The books, she informed us, had belonged to her husband who had collected them for decades and were very valuable. I think this may be a time when a picture would do more justice to that statement than I ever could. The three volume set below was priced at $200. It dates from 1999 and we have three of them in the basement.

She also had an antique flask for holding gunpowder. Eric gave it a look and passed on it, which launched her into a spiel about how its rareness justified the $365 price tag. Had it been original that would have been true, but Eric has an original in the museum at the store and used to order the one she had from the manufacturer who reproduced it sometime in the 70’s. The NINETEEEN 70’s. Of course, being Eric, he would never say that to her even if she claimed that a Wal-Mart wine glass was the Holy Grail.

Meanwhile, I had mercifully escaped to the kitchen where every available surface was covered with flats of paper. As I started looking through them one of the workers said, “We only had people glance at this stuff yesterday.It’s almost all there.” Surprise, surprise! It was rare too! I did, however, find maybe a dozen small things of fair consequence that she must not have liked and asked the worker in the kitchen to write them up. The very nice worker said she’d take them out to the check-out when she was done and I could get them there. So I looked around a little longer, met up with Eric, and we decided to check out. Immediately the elderly lady zipped across the room and demanded that our items be added up again. The check-out woman told her that the kitchen woman had done it whereupon she called the kitchen woman to come back out and justify it. She did – and she was right too. Holy cow, no WONDER estate sales don’t normally allow the seller to hang around!

Believe it or not, even after all that, we braved the cold and drear to go to another sale on Sunday even though it was the third and final day and located more toward Cleveland than to our beloved Akron. I had spotted a beautiful art deco cedar chest on their website which I wanted to get to replace some of the sold furnuiture at the mall, but I pretty much figured it wasn’t going to happen. Only it DID happen and and I got it for a reasonable, if not especially mind-blowing, price.I also got five unadvertised books and two pieces of ephemera. AND every single worker, plus the owner, thanked me for friending them on Facebook.

After that it felt so good to be back in the real world that we went to Panera for lunch to celebrate. Then we polished up the cedar chest, hauled it over the antiques mall, and went back home to clean our dusty house.

Again.

A Bookseller's Fantasy Sale

If I could create the world’s best book sale I would paint it all in bright colors with broad strokes using a giant paint brush and messy gallons of paint with drips cascading down the sides of the cans. It would be big too, this sale – lots of space and lots of books all piled up everywhere in crooked stacks on miles of tables and underneath in boxes so heavy you’d need two hands and the strength of King-Kong to pull them out. No one would be obnoxious, or step on your feet with ten pound sneakers and all of the buyers would be freshly showered. I'm not sure how this part would work, but somehow the sale would crackle with energy and still emanate a zenlike peace to soothe our nerdy bookseller souls. Oh – and the books would be priced low too – mostly a dollar, but no more than $10 for the best – and there would be more than enough books to go around so that everyone gets what they want. At my fantasy sale no one is left out, not even the scanners. Wow! Could it be that I’m turning into a nicer, gentler bookseller? Maybe. But it might also be that I’m feeling benevolent after having GONE to my fantasy sale yesterday.

The real thing looked a lot like the above, except for maybe the rain and the darkness of the building in which it was held. But think about it – when does real life ever give you every single picky little thing you imagine? Not often. And sometimes it even gives you something BETTER than you imagined. So let’s look at all the good stuff here. The crowd was great, and happily, readers outnumbered sellers two to one. Scanner people were evident too, but their magic wands likely didn’t get a heavy-duty workout because old books trumped new ones by a margin wider than a football field.(Okay, so much for the everybody gets what they want thing.) But the room WAS cavernous and there WERE lots of books and also a happy peppering of old-school book dealers to talk to. But, best of all, a sale that used to be noted for its pie-in the-sky price tags, magically morphed into the dollar store minus all the cheap Chinese doo-dads. Seriously, books were priced anywhere from a dollar (pamphlets and art catalogs fifty cents) to no more than $10. And even the $10 ones were rare – I spotted only one!

So what gives with this? I don’t know, but I suspect that there was a huge donation from one person involved, as many books centered around medieval and renaissance topics across all genres, including magazines.Either it was an estate or else the inventory of a former bookseller. I am leaning hard toward the latter because I bought some magazines on medieval history and the name of a certain bookseller I was crazy about, but who sadly died a couple years ago, is on the mailing labels. I suppose in the big picture it doesn’t matter either way whether or not they were his, except that it DOES matter -- to me anyway. This dealer was the first one of the “real booksellers” to treat me like I had a brain in my head and might actually turn out to be a “real bookseller” myself some day. Since that finally happened I would consider it an honor to sell his books which is why I’m so fervently hoping that these are them.

Will I ever know? Maybe. Or maybe not. Tomorrow is half price day and the tables will likely be picked over like a turkey carcass the day after Thanksgiving, but I'm going back anyway. To buy books, yes, but also to find out if my theory is right. He lived in the town where the sale was held and ran a store not far from thre, so I think the odds are about fifty-fifty.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, so let’s lose the sentimentality and cut to the chase. Were the books valuable? Yes. No. That is to say, it was a mixed bag on two different planes. I got a few high two-figures ones on Mennonite history, several exceptional pamphlets and art catalogs, a two year consecutive run of an uncommon magazine, and a fair number of books priced at $25-45 each, all online stock. I also got a plethora of books for the antiques mall which,oddly, are the ones I love best. Something tells me my bookseller friend may have owned most of those and quite likely some of the others too. I’d heard that his son is selling his former stock online, but I also know that some of it has been around for awhile and likely suffered the slings and arrows of wannabe sellers which means that they very well might have been donated to the sale. But there’s no point in speculation. I’ll either find out, or I won’t.

The important thing is that the new season got off to a rip-roaring start (if you don’t count the FOL sale the previous night) which we won’t. For me the official launch was yesterday and all it lacked was a bottle of champagne, a couple crystal glasses and a few rays of sunshine.

Oh yeah -- and enough high-ranking books on amazon so the scanners get to be happy too.
P.S. Isn't the new photo at the top FABULOUS? I wish I could say I took it, but I did not. It was sent by a reader to whom I am grateful, as it's exactly what I was thinking when I wrote the above.

Just Say YES!

Sorry I’ve been gone so long. I tried to write a post yesterday, but the contractor was drywalling the bathroom and created an Oklahoma dust-storm of Grapes of Wrath proportions. In light of the coughing fits I had no choice but to head for the basement and stay there  -- which was great because I have something wonderful to do down there at the moment. No, not art, though that would be fun too. This post is about books.

As you know, for almost two years I have pined, yearned, and tried to finagle more space at the antiques mall, all to no avail. Space comes at a premium there so every time a booth opened  up it caught me unready in terms of both bookcases and inventory. Finally last year I bought some bookcases from a dealer who closed up shop next door to me, so at least that problem resolved itself. As you know, I scratched alibris from my list of venues last week to free up some cash (not to mention the piece of my soul they constantly gnawed on) and called the mall to see if I could swap my existing space for a larger one across the aisle. But it had been rented the day before to a very nice dealer who had outgrown the booth next to it and wanted to do exactly what I wanted to do. Since it was adjacent to hers I could hardly begrudge her – and I didn’t. In fact, I met her Friday when I was walking by just as her teenage daughter tied an apron on a mannequin backwards. We both looked at each other at the same moment and burst out laughing.

I  told the mall I wanted the next available larger size but only in my own row because the place is cavernous and many people don’t cover the entire thing in a single trip which means that a move could be the kiss of death -- or so it seems to me anyway. But for once I felt okay with the way it turned out and decided I’d spend the wait accumulating inventory. Meanwhile a young woman who has become an online friend is about to launch her own shop at an antiques mall in Florida on Friday.  She’s at the moving in stage now, so all week we’ve been talking about display ideas, buying non-book stuff to help pay the freight etc. A couple days ago she told me that her mall’s owner had gifted her with a free closet next to her booth that’s already fitted with shelving, plus  the free use of a shelf in a showcase for expensive titles. I told her she was very lucky because the odds of anything like that happening to me were about as likely as a sudden growth spurt.

So imagine my shock and awe when a  couple hours later the mall called me to announce that the booth next to mine would be available at the end of August. It’s the same size as mine, but here’s the thing – I can have both mine AND it for what I would have paid had I gotten the larger one which is smaller than the two combined! I have always loved this mall, but never so much as I did Saturday. Thank you, thank you  thank you, Jean! I will now have 20’ of length and the same 10’ of width. We went over Sunday to check it out which was funny because in my head it was the booth on the left  when it’s actually the one on the right! Either way though the space seems cavernous.

Of course with only three weeks left to go I'm ravenous for inventory, though I do have a lot of books left from the two big collections we bought, so I can pull from there. I also plan to systematically remove some of my better things from online, so I think I’ll be okay with books. It’s other items I need to find which is why we’re headed to an auction on Thursday which advertises ZERO books. That should be an interesting experience -- Tess in Antiqueland!  I also want to take the display boards for ephemera to the new booth to add visibility to our paper items. This has been a problem almost since the beginning, so I’m excited about the possibilities. I had been displaying all of my paper flat out on the table, but as the piles  grew too unwieldy I put it in large wooden fruit crates. For a short while that worked, but once the boxes filled up people didn’t flip through them anymore. The best way to sell paper is to hang it up like I did at the Akron Book and Paper Show. At the mall I should be able to use  both sides of the  boards too -- that is, if we can figure out some way to stabilize them.

Anyway, there you have it – the  reason for my silence. I'm very happy and excited. But I also know that there’s an inherent risk in a monthly payment that equals the cost of a good-sized car payment. There's an energy this time though which somehow seems to be pulling us forward in a strange and peaceful way. In the past every time I got to the gate  I immediately pulled out a hammer and nailed up a roadblock. This time there were no roadblocks, no hesitation, no equivocating.

 I just said yes.

After the Turkey

Well, one down and one to go – holidays I mean. The weather was perfect in Ohio this Thanksgiving – sun shining, not too hot, not too cold. The turkey cooked to a turn, every dish came out the way it was supposed to and – amazing! – everybody liked everything. And that includes the two year-old. We never did bake cookies or put up the tree, but that’s because Catie’s boyfriend Joe left the kids a remote control powered Jeep of rather large proportions when they departed for Maryland. We took it outside several times and both kids had a blast – Tyler operating it and Dylan running after it screaming like a wild man. We also took an after dinner stroll uptown to the square – Moira, Eric, Tyler and I did at least -- and wouldn’t you know I never thought to bring the camera. The turbo-charged one finally fell asleep after banging every kitchen cabinet door, walking around carrying bottles of spices clutcdhed in both tiny fists, turning the dishwasher on twice, coating my glass topped coffee table with mashed potatoes (a second dessert?) and hitting the phone locator button so many times it’s amazing it still works. The second that curly little head hit the mattress we were out the door leaving Dad in charge!

Medina’s town square sparkles like a Victorian Christmas card topped off with a wedding cake gazebo in the center of the town park. If you watched the old Gilmore Girls TV show think Star’s Hollow and there you have Medina. All we lack is the town minstrel, but Christmas music poured from the speaker system, though it did zing a bit erratically from down-home country to the rhapsodic Ave Maria. I never think of Ave Maria as a Christmas song because the mailman sang it at our June wedding back in the Stone Age. I know, I know – it sounds bogus having the mailman sing, but it wasn’t. Honest.

We called Caitie and Joe in Maryland when we got back, but couldn’t use Face Time which was the plan because Gran and Papa, Stone Age throwbacks that we are, lack Wi-fi. Who knew you’d need it? I thought the technology had something to do with the phone! I was a little sad that we didn’t get to see them and they didn’t get to see how big Dylan is now. It also made me sad to think of them in a little neighborhood restaurant eating turkey. But they will be here for Christmas, so that helps.

Yesterday performed only like a normal Friday at the mall, so I’m wondering if the Big Box Bonanza took a big bite out of it. Tonight should tell the tale. Last year the Saturday after Thanksgiving rocked and rolled, but with the emphasis on electronic gadgetry,big box deals, and the state of the economy I don’t know that we’ll do as well this time. One thing that brought me up short Wednesday night when I went in to clean and restock was the shocker next door to us – yet another dealer has folded and the booth is empty. That means that in one year both booths alongside ours vacated twice each. I know it will fill rapidly, but the turnover frequency is definitely disconcerting. We are still operating well in the black, but since fall there’s been a decided downturn. Maybe it’s books. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe it’s the mall. I don’t know. What I do know is that this year I have more and better stuff, but I am hearing from other book dealers at different malls that they’ve likewise experienced a drop since summer.

This time I didn’t even entertain the notion of renting the space. I did, however, buy three large bookcases from the ex-dealer at the bargain price of $10 each. She didn’t sell too many books – mostly the cases displayed glass, linens and other smalls. Even if I never expand to a second booth I can use them here for overflow (whatever THAT is), so it’s a good deal no matter what.

Today I need to get with it and work because yesterday I totally vegged out. I’m not kidding. I didn’t do a blessed thing but tidy up the house and read Peter Stoneley’s Consumerism and American Girls’ Literature 1860-1940. Very good and very eye-opening. I love books about books, but after reading this one I will never look at series fiction for girls of the period in the same way. The author is an English professor from Belfast, Northern Ireland, but I think he pretty well nailed the state of American juvenile lit of the period. I guess it could be argued that reading such stuff won't do much to improve sales.  But even with all the very real threats to our profession I still believe that continuing education makes us better booksellers.

By the way, today is the designated national day to support small sellers. I am off right now to buy Eric a Scottish art glass paperweight for his collection from an online antiques dealer. Get thee off to buy a gift from the little guy too. If everyone buys at least one thing that didn't come from a megastore Christmas will be brighter for us all.

New Homes For Book Orphans

My youngest daughter Caitie firmly believes that when something good is happening, but is not definitively resolved, you are wise to shut up and not jinx it with endless blather. Her mother sort of believes it too, but apparently not enough to actually do it. Based on this past week I am here to tentatively suggest that fall may have officially rode in on a speedy horse rounding up people in the mood to buy books. Both online sales and antiques mall sales have been quite robust which is partly why I failed to keep my blogging streak going yesterday.

When I look back at a week’s sales I always like to see what people bought as much as what they spent. As a bookseller I am as in love with the “product” as I am with the jingling of the cash register. I don’t sell widgets and I am not in the business of shipping rectangular objects from hither to yon, so it endlessly fascinates me to look at the list. Hopelessly corny as it probably is, I sometimes think of my inventory as an orphanage of small souls in need of homes, so when one gets adopted it’s always cause for rejoicing, however insignificant the price. Yes I know -- I do complain when all the sales come off the “bad” server and consist of only low-end old stuff that’s been kicking around for more than a decade, but even as I whine I’m sort of tickled anyway.

I haven’t really talked about the weekly sold list, but I woke up this morning thinking it was Saturday and my friend Nancy and I were off to the library to sign the petition to repeal the Ohio governor’s legislation that compromises voting rights for a large segment of the population. I knew there were no sales to go to because I’d checked the paper, but I still thought it was Saturday which is odd because Eric just left yesterday for Indiana. Sometimes if he’s gone and I spend too much time holed up in my office working (I’ve been known to go twelve hours at a stretch) I get a little hermitlike and lose track of the day. Fortunately, I logged onto the computer before I made the coffee, saw the date, and snapped back to reality.

But thinking about Nancy reminded me of two years ago when I tore my rotator cuff by climbing up the basement stairs the day before the Case Western Reserve book sale and somehow entangling my foot in the leg of my capri-length pajamas. Eric had to leave for a trip within a week of this debilitating injury, so I was planning to shut down until Nancy offered to wrap and ship for me. Now get this – Nancy works a 40 hour week and still offered to do this every other night for two weeks. Am I lucky, or what? I truly think, and not just because of this, that Nancy is the finest human being I have ever met. Like clockwork she showed up, cheerful and diligent, and turned out packages as meticulous as those I wrap myself. But the thing I loved most was her delight in what people bought and her amazement at some of the titles awaiting her ministrations. I remember especially a stack of twelve Chemical Abstracts journals published in the 1920’s by the American Chemical Association. Her amazement still makes me laugh – maybe because I’m still pretty amazed myself.

Well, that was a lot of words to get to the point, wasn’t it? Anyway, I thought maybe, book lovers that you are, you would find it fun to sneak a peak at my weekly list. Actually there are two lists – one for online and one for the mall. I won’t enumerate everything, but instead just share some highlights from each.

Online the mood was rather “weaponish” this week with sales for Firearms Investigation Identification and Evidence; Illustrated British Firearms Patents; Remington Autoloading & Pump-Action Rifles: A History of the Centerfire Models 760, 740, 742, 7400 & 7600; Fur Trade Cutlery; The Knife In Homespun America; and A.H. Fox, The Finest Gun in the World. The latter was my first sale from the books I bought from my online customer. Other topics included thatching roofs, building model planes, political buttons, collecting medicine bottles, the history of the United States Navy in two volumes, Border Settlers of Northern Virginia, narrow gauge railroads, the splashy 1926 United States Steel 25th Anniversary retrospective I mentioned earlier that I'd quoted to a customer; and a very cool booklet on short selling from 1931 by Richard Whitney the disgraced and jailed president of the New York Stock Exchange. It even included his card laid-in.  

The antiques mall proved much more eclectic as is often the case. Amongst the claimed books there were a signed first edition by Alistair Cook (best known at our house as Alistair Cookie a la Sesame Street); The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare (Shakespeare rocks at the antiques mall); a book on crowd psychology; an ENORMOUS Currier & Ives calendar from 1968 (think elephant folio); Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; several issues of Ohio Practical Farmer from 1888; a book about Ohio interurbans; a book about Cleveland churches; and Alan Nevins’ eight volume series on the Civil War.

What any of this means in terms of trends is anybody's guess. In fact, I doubt it means a darn thing except that we sell what we have. Other than Leaves of Grass, none of the above are books I would read myself. And yet I love every last one of them and hope they all found good homes where they will be appreciated for a very long time.

Rainy Day and Sundays

Overcast skies and drizzle today, but Nancy and I were undeterred from our Sunday walk. We do five miles – the same neighborhood route all the time because we’ve marked it out with a pedometer – unless we go to Hinckley which we must do soon and when we do I must take a camera to show you this jewel of a spot. Storms threatened today (they have so far failed to occur) but we didn’t dare venture onto the trails surrounding the big lake. We did see a deer though, a doe, as we crossed through Reagan Park which connects my neighborhood (Timberlake) to Forest Meadows which is larger. She stood alert a few feet off the drive gazing at us through a clearing as though we were a zoo exhibit. I have had no deer in the yard all summer, which pleases Eric because they munch too heartily on flowers, sometimes eating them to the root. But I know that fall and winter will bring them back again, and I will be glad, as I never tire of their beauty. It’s the eyes I think. Deer look at you with a brown velvet gaze the color of ancient sorrow.

We enjoyed the walk, came back and hung out in the kitchen for awhile and then after Nancy left I rearranged the bookshelves Eric built in the living room. I hadn’t noticed until we went in there to get a book on sulphides, the kind that are cameos enclosed in glass, that my carefully thought out shelves which featured not only books, but other beautiful and whimisical collectibles had become suddenly overcrowded. Books lay sideways on top of books, my cobalt glass vases had become bookends, and the overall look was one of chaos and confusion. The realization drew me up short and brought with it a kind of despair. How had I let this happen? And how had I not realized it? Even now after my ministrations it’s only marginally better, but I am out of space.

Touching the books, which consist of a mishmash of things we like with things that have collectible value, is usually a pleasure, but today served only to deepen my despair. I have worked hard to learn about books for over a decade and yet what remains unlearned is so vast I can barely comprehend it. It’s like gazing up at the night sky and pondering the unfathomable depth and breadth of the universe. I feel such a frustration because it’s so rare to find truly good books here. I have had nice books, I still have nice books, and I am grateful for that--but I have not had the kind I wish to have learned from. How amazing it would have been to have apprenticed with a shop that DOES have fine books. This weekend I sold one antiquarian book, but all the rest were of the usual modern ilk. They ranged in price from $45 to $100 and I am grateful for that too, but these are the not the books that call to me, not the books which decorate my dreams as my brain plays out bizarre scenerios against their backdrop. I truly don’t think that I will ever see these kinds of books or, be versed enough, to deal with them if I do.

The infamous book sale comment I overheard at the Cuyahoga Fall Library sale a few years ago -- “You don’t gotta know nothin’ to sell books”, today rattles around in my head like a pebble in the toe of a shoe. I don’t know whether to raise the ante on my indignation or weep at such utter ignorance. Nancy and I were talking about this today and she said I underestimate myself, that I have never been a know-nothing bookseller even when I first began and knew much less than I know now. I can see how she would say that, as I am a researcher, a caretaker, a bibliophile from birth, but none of that makes it true. Yes, I have moved into a different, and more interesting place than the one at which I began, but the truth is nonetheless this – the journey has been slow, the path steep, and the walker a pilgrim, staff in hand, still forging onward without a map.

It’s pretty hard to get there when you don’t know where “there” is. Is “there” the place where you know everything about typography, small presses, woodcuts, steel engravings, early photography, and edition points. Or is “there” a mile further off to the left of the place where you speak fluently the language of books. Or is “there” even further yet where you have acquired credentials greater than “street cred”? I don’t know, but I do know one thing -- I will not make it to there. Ever. I know this as surely as I know the deer will return this winter. I’m even okay with it.

Except on Sundays when it rains.

Who's Confused?

As I write this, winter rages outside the window – yet AGAIN. I am so tired of the relentless bad weather and this never-ending fibro flare in which I find myself. Ever since my last post I have worked very little and feel almost as though the outside world is something separate from me, sealed off by a veil of snow. Sales have taken a dive too which is not surprising because if you don’t keep listing you can be quickly out of the game. But I almost don’t mind because I haven’t the energy to deal with anything anyway. I’m here now only because I miss being here and can’t believe how long it’s been since I last wrote. I actually even found something worth telling you about which is pretty amazing given that the only other big news is that I read Anne Tyler’s The Amateur Marriage.

An odd, odd thing happened though during my sojourn on the couch. I have been checking email only twice a day because in a flare my muscles get very tight and can be easily injured which compounds the problem greatly. One summer I stepped down off the porch and pulled a muscle in my leg and couldn’t walk for over a week. Then a couple weeks later I climbed up on the bed to dust the top of a window and did it again to the other leg! Anyway, on Wednesday I came up around four to check messages only to be greeted with an email informing me that I had sent someone the wrong book. Given my current state I could certainly believe it, so I clicked on it with a deep sense of resignation. But wait! HUH? The book, The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, was a two volume set in facsimile edition, brand new in the publisher’s shrinkwrap. Immediately I remembered its size, heft, and navy blue cloth cover and knew exactly where it had come from and when. I bought it in 2005 in a lot of almost 4000 books, all of which were new, from a man who sold historical books at shows, but had had to quit due to debilitating fibromyalgia. (How’s THAT for irony?) There had been three sets, but a quick look at my database showed that the last one sold in 2006!

The buyer provided an ABE PO number, so I went over to search for it and drew it up immediately. The books sold to him on July 27, 2006 at which time he’d also purchased the set of Lee’s Memoirs in the same edition, also new and in shrinkwrap. But here’s the shocker – in the current email he told me that he had ordered the Grant and I had sent him the Lee. According to ABE’s records (and my own which I also dragged out and checked) he had bought both sets only to return the Grant the following week. Now he wanted to send the Lee back in exchange for the Grant which of course I don’t have. He also told me that he had reported the problem to ABE which added greatly to the oddness given the fact that I had had no communication from ABE about it at all. I tried phoning them, but they were closed due to a storm in British Columbia.

Eric and I chewed it over that evening and I finally wrote him a note sharing my findings and my amazement that it taken FIVE YEARS to note a problem if one occurred. I was polite, but certainly not exuding warm-fuzzies. Given how upset I was though I think I sounded like a bookseller channeling the Dali Lama. I hit the send button and went downstairs to wait for the scathing reply. None came

But the next morning I forced myself to call ABE anyway and explain the whole tiresome thing just in case they harbored the notion that he should be refunded. The poor woman who answered the phone was so baffled that she was certain I had the wrong PO number. When I finally convinced her that the sale had indeed occurred in 2006 she said, “Oh, I think this is man is very confused.”

Well, that’s not the word I would have used, but okay, we’ll go with it, especially since she said that the statute of limitations had run out. ABE has a 30 day return policy. She also told me I should impart that information to him and suggest that perhaps he could buy the Grants from another ABE seller. I managed a weak laugh at that, but did exactly as instructed and have still not had a response from the buyer. Something tells me I won’t either.

He’ll be too busy ordering his new set from another ABE seller.

Christmas Challenges

Once again – LATE. I had forgotten when I wrote my last post Saturday (it WAS five-thirty in the morning let us not forget) that I had signed up to work my annual full day shift at the community center yesterday. Every Christmas they set up a very cool shop where families in need can come in and select toys, books, and stocking stuffers for their kids. I went at nine-thirty and got back at six-thirty totally fried, but glad, as always,  that I’d done it. You would think this would be depressing during the holidays, but it’s not. In fact, it’s the opposite  -- great fun, especially helping people choose books for their kids. A bookseller’s paradise!

The other thing I like about doing this is the perspective it provides. On the outside looking in it’s so easy to think people should just get a job and take care of themselves. But when you meet need up close and personal it not only  bops you over the head with stark realities, but makes you feel privileged to help alleviate it even a little. What blows me away every time is the grace and good humor the people bring with them, slung over their shoulders like Santa sacks. Not one crabby person, not one scam artist other than a guy notorious for a little minor finagling so obvious it's hysterical. I wouldn’t miss this opportunity even for an avalanche of orders.

At first it looked like it might get a little dicey though because donations had dropped this year. The offerings were great, but the place didn’t exactly look like Macy’s as they'd had this event Sunday too. Even toys for small children, which is what most people like to give, lagged in certain areas. But the book magic I experienced last week morphed into toy magic and through the door THREE times came huge donations of dolls, Tonka trucks, Candyland games, Bacuguans (I doubt I spelled that one right!) – even fiberglass sleds. And -- just like that! -- the ho-ho-ho surged back into Christmas.

But I think for booksellers, or at least for this bookseller, the ho-ho-ho may well be over. When you’re shipping out 1958 Montgomery Ward sporting goods catalogs (to Japan much less) and Ohio Stream Flow Part I;  Areas of Lakes and Drainage Basins Run-Off Records Prior to 1921 I think it’s safe to surmise that Santa has left the building. The best title of all to fly out the door though was this one --  Eigenfunction Expansions Associated with Second-Order Differential Equations. Isn’t that  fun to say? Makes you want to pop some popcorn, light the fire, and settle in with that baby! I'm trying desperately to work it into a conversation just for the pleasure of repeating it. It totally cracks me up, but then I’m easily amused.

Now then, getting back to where we left off on Saturday, I noticed a deafening silence regarding my challenge to try selling a shelf-sitter. As I said, I think the statute of limitations is up for me, but I’m going to give it a go nonetheless. To prove my serious intent I have chosen a title which may require the services of a witch doctor, a shaman, a gaggle of Tibetan monks and the Dali Lama himself. The title is Angling Books; A Guide for Collectors by Charles Thacher. I had two of these and sold one for $200 in 2007. Since then, however, the price dropped faster than the Waterford crystal ball on Times Square at midnight. I adjusted my price once (to $125), but haven’t looked at it in ages, so I suspect it’s zoomed so far south the book has sunburn by now. But that’s okay. The challenge is to MOVE it, so I will leap over burning buildings if needed to make it happen. Let’s give it two weeks due to the holiday and see if it can be done. I promise to report back with the news, be it good or bad.

In fact, I think I will start this little experiment right this minute.  I’d planned to list some books today – it feels odd being back at work, but good too – so I might as well add this one to the mix. As you can see from  the photo, I even hauled out my lucky stones and a stick of the Indian incense we bought in Cleveland Heights last week. Do I really think these  will help? Probably not. But they do make a nice picture.

Man! Maybe It's Magic

Crazy days are  here again! The orders have slacked off in number, but the dollar value is holding, so I was happy to allot the entire day yesterday to a project which might make you say, “this woman has too much time on her hands.” It's five-thirty a.m. as I write this and we are off to Michigan for our oldest grandson’s seventh birthday today. Huge high-jinks involved there, including tickets to a matinee of a Broadway production of Mary Poppins in Detroit, following by the whole family converging on our daughter’s house for a birthday bonanza. We bought him a fancy Legos set and a battery operated card shuffler, the latter because I think our early morning Uno games demand it. Between us that child and I are in no danger of landing a job in Vegas.  For every occasion Tyler makes me a card, so I figured  it was high time I made him one too. I grabbed a few pieces of card stock, some old ephemera, the cotton from inside a jewelry box, wide silver ribbon and an old broken watch and set at it.

While I worked I thought about something I heard years ago from an old bookseller who told me that the fastest way to sell a book that’s outstayed its welcome is to get involved with it. Pick it up, rifle the pages, pull out an interesting bit of info to add to the description, change the price, take a picture –anything. I wonder if I was subconsciously channeling that the last time I posted. Remember The Book-Lover’s Anthology from which I quoted Ruskin? Not only did I write about it, but I took a picture too -- and guess what?  After four years in my company  it was ordered on Advanced Book Exchange the  SAME NIGHT  I wrote the post. Did the sale have anything to do with its appearance here? I doubt it greatly. It’s not like mobs and hordes descend daily to read my breathless prose. No, I’m leaning more toward book magic.

Here’s why. I told my friend Nancy about the coincidence in an email yesterday morning. Nancy does marketing and PR for a non-profit, so of course she’s always thinking of how to stir up activity. No surprise then when she suggested I do it again, only this time pick a REAL shelf sitter and write it up like it were the only printed copy of Oprah’s latest book club choice. I pondered it awhile and finally decided to go with The Natural History of the Human Races which has been here since 2003.  As directed, I  picked it up, looked it over, put it back, and then knocked off early to do a little Christmas shopping. When I returned later in the evening my voice mail held a message form a long-time customer from Philadelphia,

“Tess, I want to pay for the three books you’re holding for me, but I’m also wondering if you have anything on the evolution of mankind.”

No way! No WAY! It was not possible. I marveled over it all evening and  called him yesterday morning. You will NOT believe what happened next.  I told him it was written by  John P. Jeffries of  Wooster Ohio in 1869 and had some nice color plates.

“That’s IT!” he shouted, cutting me off. “I can’t believe it -- that’s the exact book I wanted to buy ten years ago. I was at a used bookstore and  saw it at the same time a professor from the University of Pennsylvania did.  I figured he might need it more than I did, so I let him take it and have never seen another one.”

If you think that’s amazing,  just wait -- there’s more. Last week I impulsively decided to take an Ohio title I’d had for a year to the antiques mall since Ohio titles seem to sell well there. It’s a topographical survey, but filled with extra letters by and from the author seeking and receiving specific additional  information. I had taken it to the antiquarian show last spring, and though it had lots of lookers, I didn’t sell it. So I decided to cut the price to $50 since I didn’t have much in it and just get rid of it. Mission accomplished - it sold at the mall last  Friday. Today, however,  I got an order from Biblio for the same book only priced at $150. My first response was to berate myself for being so hasty, as well as for forgetting to take it offline. But as I read the description realization slowly dawned. The order was not for the book I had taken to  the mall. The one at the mall had originally been $30 and in “dropping” the price I had actually raised it to $50! Quickly I located the expensive copy and saw that it had a slipcase, a huge map on linen, many more letters and was signed by the author because it was HIS own copy. So by moving the one book I sold two, one at full price and one higher than the original price.

Of course  there’s probably  a statute of limitations on this bookselling technique and I’ve maxed  out my share for awhile. But I think it would be fun if we all tried it and reported back our success, or lack thereof. What do you think? Well, mull it over while I’m in Michigan. I’ll be back tomorrow,  but accompanied by the entire Michigan entourage, as we have to go to a birthday party for Eric’s 93 year-old aunt.  I’ll check in at some point though. Let’s make some magic!

Mall Musings

 

Dare I say it out loud? Will the book gods hear and deem me too self-satisfied to be worthy of future good books? I don’t know. It’s definitely a risk, but here goes. I am cautiously optimistic about the antiques mall. There. I’ve said it. And so far nothing bad has befallen me, so I guess I’ll elaborate.

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to the mall Saturday night with a couple more boxes of books. We pulled into the parking lot and immediately gazed around in disbelief. The place looked like a used car lot! They stay open until eight on Saturdays and it was only five-thirty, but still… they actually had more cars than K-Mart! Inside I checked in, logged the time, and made myself a name sticker with my booth number on it. The second I adhered it to my sweater a guy came over to tell me that he’d  just bought a Bible from me. I chatted with him for awhile  and then  went back to the booth where I beheld – could it really be? --a second customer! A man held up a book about paperweights and said, “Nice book! I’m going to buy this from you” then promptly bore it away.

I unpacked my new stock, marveling at how fun all this customer contact was, when suddenly a realization cut the thrill off at the pass.  At the antiques mall the dealer does NOT want to be in the booth a second longer than necessary. For some reason the sight of you repels customers faster than a live tarantula. I also noticed that all the fixing, decorating and neatening a fussy shop owner does lasts maybe a nanosecond, but in the end  that’s actually a GOOD thing because it means that in your absence the wind blew in some readers. The books that had been standing lay like corpses, gaps from sold books caused surrounding  books to lean in an attitude of exhaustion  and the ephemera looked like it had been poured out onto the table from a dump truck. I set things to rights, grabbed my empty boxes, and took off in hopes of finding someone to help with the password problem so I could check my sales. But the checkout line snaked all the way across the long checkout/wrapping counter, so I didn’t bother.

The next day, Sunday, my friend Nancy and I returned shortly after the mall opened with yet another box of books and the world‘s thickest dictionary which I featured in a post this past summer. I got the password problem fixed in two seconds and – voila! – my sales appeared on the screen. I tried very hard to be cool about it and, in fact, put in a performance worthy of an Oscar I think,  considering that  I felt like I’d swallowed a Mexican jumping bean. Not only had I made enough to pay the pro-rated rent for November, but I almost made enough to cover December too. And – yes, yes, YES! – the 1937 Birds of America sold while we went to Target in the rain last Monday to buy the smaller table. And it gets even better. Last night I checked sales again and I made enough to pay all of December’s rent with a small profit already

Okay, now I’m getting nervous. I’m acting entirely too excited here which will not do because I truly need to stay under the book gods’ radar. So let’s switch topics to what kind of books actually sold. This is very interesting because only one area that I predicted to do well actually performed as expected. Just as I thought, the hottest ticket was local history, hands down. Most of my sales came from that section, but I did sell a couple childrens' books, the Bible (very nice, unused, vintage, Catholic), the paperweight book, a book on heraldry, and two expensive 18^th century fashion magazines -- The Delineator and the very rare Peterson’s Ladies Magazine. My number of items in stock hovers  at only around 400, plus the pile of ephemera of which there must be at least fifty pieces on the table. I had expected the latter to be the cash cow, but not so. Other than the two fashion magazines it’s all still intact.

So what does it mean? I don’t know , but I do know that it’s far too soon to entertain thoughts of shutting down some of my internet venues and getting a bigger booth. Yes, I actually did briefly think those things, but I know better than to take them too seriously. Right now it’s enough to be pleased, less scared (but still some scared), and relieved – not to mention grateful.

I yearned for a good omen and  I got  one after all. Make that two -- the Audubon book and the  lucky dime Eric found in the parking lot in the rain.

Thunder, Dimes, and Omens

I think sometimes we're better off not knowing what we're getting into until we're into it. Had anyone told me I would be logging fifteen hours a day getting ready to launch the mall booth I might have crawled under the bed and hidden from myself. And yet had I not impulsively signed the contract and pushed myself to deliver I would be stockpiling books and fussing over details (I did enough of the latter as it is) until I was so old I’d be hobbling into the mall one book at a time.

Which is not to say this project was a Picnic in the Park With George. Monday morning, set-up day, we woke to howling winds. By the time Eric and I loaded the store cube van with the five new bookcases and what few books and ephemera I had been able to process, thunder crashed like an omen from the Inferno. As we pulled into the mall parking lot the dark sky opened and rain, like a thousand lamentations, poured over my previously high spirits. Suddenly I  knew with absolute certainty that I wasn’t prepared, didn’t have enough books ready, shouldn’t have done it, and most definitely shouldn’t  have been encouraged to do it by the guy sitting next to me.

For awhile we sat in the truck until we could make a dash for the door, me staring morosely into the gloom, Eric telling me that a mall store is a work in progress. It takes time. It takes work. It takes a little faith. Did I think all those crowded booths got that way immediately?

Actually, yes, I did. But I kept it to myself and let him talk. When the rain lessened he opened the driver’s side door, hopped out with great enthusiasm, and immediately picked up something up off the concrete.

“Hey, look what I just  found! ” He held it up for me to see. “A lucky dime. How about that?”

This from the man who not two minutes before when I said the weather was a bad omen told me there was no such thing as omens.

Inside, the mall seemed vast and alien. I couldn’t find the booth without help and when I  did it loomed empty, ugly, and too small. An hour later it perked up and grew a couple feet, only to shrink again to the size of a shoebox when we opened the six foot table that was supposed to hold the two boxes of bagged ephemera, plus a row of decorative books at the back. The  table was a barrier so effective it beat sawhorses at a construction site hands-down. If you don’t want anyone getting close to your books I highly recommend you get one. Maybe they even have eight footers.

Anyway, we had no choice but to trudge out to Target in the rain and buy a smaller one which fit better, but would barely hold even some of the ephemera, much less  the books with the eye-catching covers. As it turned out, this was actually a GOOD thing because I was right about the number of books in general. I didn’t have close to enough. And even now after processing three banker’s boxes more last night (and pulling a muscle in my knee), I still don’t have enough. I know this because we were back over there again today. So now I vacillate over what to do. Do I decommission more internet stock, or just let it go as is? I suppose could take my high end stuff over because I don’t have it most of it online, but I’m too afraid of shoplifting and, besides, was holding it back for the antiquarian show in April.  The thing is, a book vanished into thin air while we were at Target. Maybe somebody actually bought it, though that would be so amazing I might have to turn into an optimist. 

All I know is its %^&*$$% ticket (that took forever to make and is the reason why I have so little stock)  was lying on the carpet where the book had been and the book (a 1937 Audubon’s Birds of America with the soft paper and brilliant colors) was gone with not so much as a feather left behind. I won’t know until tomorrow when I’m in  the mall's computer system and can check my sales on the internet whether it found a happy home, or was kidnapped. 

But I do know one thing. It's an omen.

At Last to List!

It’s dark and cold today and I am happy as a clam, though why clams are happy is anybody’s guess. Today I am FINALLY going to hunker down with the new books from the auction, plus the new ones I bought yesterday at the estate sale, and do some serious listing. I did add maybe ten on Thursday, but they were fairly easy, as some of them I already had in my database, so I needed only to change the description and was good to go.  The coffee’s on, my favorite mug with the green pear is washed, Eric left for the store, and even my typing is better than usual. All systems shout GO!

Speaking of the estate sale though, it ended up being quite novel and fun. I admit that I can be easily amused, but you have to picture this, as it’s not a common occurrence for these things to be quite so convivial. We got there three hours ahead of start time – well, minus maybe ten minutes as Eric had trouble extricating himself from the store. There’s a strange law about stores. They can be quiet as King Tut’s tomb, but as soon as you need to be somewhere people emerge from the woodwork waving fistfuls of money. By the time we finally got to Akron a long line of cars lined the main street AND a side street. But it was okay to be numbers 28 and 29, as the house was big and the atmosphere that of a party. This was due to the fact that if the goods are worthy this particular estate sale company rewards its potential buyers. In this instance they had set up several contained fires to take  the chill out of  the air, plus a buffet table festooned with a big pot of hot chocolate, as well as  muffins and cookies displayed on pretty trays lined with paper autumn leaves.  The sight of it unleashed a tremendous amount of good will.

Also, Andrea, who is one of my favorite booksellers ,showed up, as did Darwin, an antiques dealer and expert on American quilts . I met Darwin back in the 70‘s when he was a big deal in the art world for elevating the Amish quilt to folk art status. I wrote numerous articles about him – one for the Akron Beacon Journal magazine and several others for various antiques publications – so it’s always fun to reconnect. He and I are both trying to use technology to promote our blogs and neither one of us is  very good at it, so we laugh about it a lot which is really about all you can do other than buy a Dummies book on the topic, which I did, but  I hate reading it so ....

Anyway, the sale abounded with gorgeous high end antiques -- furniture, silver, glass, china, art, huge wall maps, and a travelling dresser set in a heavy wooden case so beautiful you’d lug the thing on your back even if you were off to visit an ashram in Calcutta. Oddly, the condition of most the books fell far below the condition of the other stuff, but I still managed to gather up some nice goodies, including beautiful issues of Frank Leslie’s weekly paper from the 1880’s, three very good gun books (one in particular), a limited edition book on illuminated manuscripts, and a very nice 1871 copy of  The Soldier’s Story of His Captivity at Anderson, Belle Isle, and Other Rebel Prisons by Warren Lee Goss. I also bought several old auction catalogs, a  gun catalog  from the 1920's, and Lathrop C. Harper's 214th catalog.

Lathrop C. Harper was a rock star bookseller back in the day, so this one almost required smelling salts. Of course it wasn’t  a catalog produced by Harper himself – had that been the case I'd have been knocked out cold. But even though the 214th catalog came from the business which retained Lathrop Harper's name, it's still a beautiful thing and I think he'd have given it two thumbs up. We'll have to talk about Lathrop Harper sometime, as I have one very cool thing of his that would be fun to share.

So there you have it --  the report from the field. But now it’s time for me to fire up the camera, select a nice stack of books to list and get at it. The sun came out while I was writing this, which is a darn shame, not because I wish I were outside doing something else, but because listing and writing, both things I love, are enhanced by overcast skies and freezing temperatures. 

One out of two will have to do.