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ILAB: A Timeline

" Enrichir vos collections, cultiver votre curiosité " French booksellers association launches new websites

"Enrich your collections, cultivate your curiosity” has been the motto of recent virtual book fairs, hosted by the French antiquarian booksellers association.
The pandemic brought much upheaval to the rare book trade worldwide and amongst other international fairs, the Paris Salon du Livre in April 2020 was cancelled. However, the board of SLAM reacted immediately and launched already in those early days in April 2020 a digital version of the Salon. An idea was born!

Virtual book fairs were developed in the course of 2020 and even a physical fair could be held at the Grand Palais in September 2020 under strictest hygienic measures.
The 2021 edition of the Salon du Livre Rare & des Experts en Objets d'art is now scheduled to take place in September 2021 at a new venue. This change of location is not linked to the pandemic but renovations in the Grand Palais which had been planned by the City of Paris for several years pre-COVID.

SLAM has found an excellent alternative, the Grand Palais Éphémère, an exceptional temporary conference venue, purpose-built on the Champ de Mars just below the Eiffel Tower. All information about the fairs and the association can be found on the Salon website, one of the sites which went live only a few days ago: https://salondulivrerare.com/

A second site: www.amorlibrorum.fr, adopting the motto of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), leads to the virtual rare book fairs organised by SLAM of which one event starts today: The monthly "E-Rendez-Vous”. Every 3rd of the month, this fair allows dealers to display 3 books for 3 days. Speed-dating for bibliophiles!

This new concept was launched by SLAM in February 2021. The fifth session starts today, with a growing success. Nearly 180 booksellers have opened an account since February and take turns each month, with an average of 90 exhibitors present. More than a third of the exhibitors are international booksellers from beyond the French borders. The bilingual site receives nearly 40% foreign visitors!

"It is a real satisfaction to be able to keep this contact, every month, not only with the visitors from France and the whole world, but also with all the colleagues. All of them have made great efforts to adapt to these new methods, and I would like to thank them and congratulate them. And they are rewarded: the percentage of books sold improves fair after fair, and since February and with the two e-salons of December and May, more than 500 books have been sold. 'Amor Librorum' is not a vain maxim but a link that survives, even if it is by internet!", says Hervé Valentin, President of SLAM.

For more information about the SLAM, the Syndicat National de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne, please click HERE or contact the SLAM Office if you wish to exhibit at any of the upcoming events or have questions about buying at a virtual fair.

Enrichez vos collections! Cultivez votre curiosité!

"A collection can grow and change with the times and, above all, always be the occasion and starting point for new interpretations."

Elisabeth Wittkowski (born 1998) wins Young Collectors' Award 2022 for Elton John Collection: "Self-Representation and Reception 1970-72".

On 21 February 2022, during this year's Stuttgart Rare Book Fair, Ms Elisabeth Wittkowski will receive the first prize of the 2022 Young Collector's Award with an endowment of EUR1000 by the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association.
Link to register for the online prize giving ceremony, please GO HERE

The interest in developing and curating a collection, but also the enjoyment of the objects and collection areas, transcends generations. On the occasion of the 2022 Stuttgart Rare Book Fair, the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association called for applications for a second time, since the inaugural award in 2020. The applicants, no older than 35, were asked to give an overview of their collection but also to describe their motives.

The jury chose Elisabeth Wittkowski's creative and convincing work on "Self-Representation and Reception" of Elton John in the early 1970s from among the diverse entries. On the one hand, the artist fascinates in his constant development, but the collection often shows another person behind the generally visible stage persona. Authentic representation versus media distortions of reality but also the multimedia nature of Elton John's reception reflect both the collecting theme and everyday cultural processes of the early 1970s.

"And they do collect! This, or similar, is how one might paraphrase a well-known quote. The applications for the 2022 Young Collector's Award, which is being offered for the second time, have shown that the hunt for books, as objects of desire, is unbroken and age-independent. Only the search, the possibilities of acquisition and the contents of the collectibles differ and often have a stronger connection to the present. It is always a pleasure to be able to experience and feel the enthusiasm of young people for printed matter in any form." Sibylle Wieduwilt, Chairwoman of the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association and member of the jury.

All images below were supplied by E. Wittkowski.


The Stuttgart Rare Book Fair runs 18 - 22 February 2022
Link to virtual fair: VIRTUAL STUTTGART RARE BOOK FAIR 2022

As a result of the COVID pandemic, the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (Verband Deutscher Antiquare) developed a virtual fair platform in 2021, which in 2022 will once again give rare booksellers from Germany and abroad the opportunity to present their stock while in-person fairs and events are not yet allowed in Germany.

In 2022, the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association welcomes 73 antiquarian bookshops and galleries from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, England and the US.

All exhibitors are listed here.

Stuttgart Fair Catalogue

The Stuttgart fair catalogue is now published and can be ordered by email from the Association's office.
An electronic version is available FOR DOWNLOAD HERE

Virtual Stuttgart Rare Book Fair 2022 opens 18 February at 12 noon German time

The virtual Stuttgart Rare Book Fair 2022 will go live on 18 February 2022 at 12 noon German time and closes on 22 February 2022 at midnight.
73 German and international antiquarian booksellers and galleries will exhibit up to 20 additional objects each. The virtual fair does not handle direct sales; sales are made directly through the dealer.
You can reach the virtual fair via ff. link: VIRTUAL STUTTGART RARE BOOK FAIR 2022

"As a trade association, we have a wealth of knowledge and experience amongst our members that is second to none"

Well-known bookseller and highly engaged supporter of the trade, Deborah Coltham will now steer the ship for the ABA for the coming two years.

After graduating from St Andrews University in 1994 with an MA in English Literature and Medieval History, Deborah joined Pickering & Chatto Ltd as an apprentice to the Head of the Science and Medicine Department, subsequently taking over the role in 1998. She established Deborah Coltham Rare Books in July 2006 and continues to specialise in a wide range of scientific and medical subjects, with books by or about women being a particular area of interest. She has worked closely with major libraries, institutions and individual collectors both in the UK and worldwide. Deborah has been part of the ABA National Council since 2017, for many years in the role of Membership Secretary and Vice-President. Besides her role as president of the ABA, Deborah organises and sits on the judging panel of the ABA National Book Collecting Prize, and is a faculty member of the annual York Annual Antiquarian Book Seminar.

In September 2022, Deborah played a key role in running our very successful 2nd ILAB Symposium at the Bodleian Library's Weston Library, moderating the event.


Deborah Coltham at the ILAB Symposium, September 2022


In a recent letter to members, Deborah looks back at the past few - stormy - years, when the book trade had to weather the unprecedented pandemic and many changes and challenges resulting from it.

It is with immense pride that I write to you in my new capacity as ABA President, having been elected to take over the role from Pom Harrington at the AGM last Wednesday. I am delighted that Bernard Shapiro was duly elected as Vice President, and that Daniel Crouch was happy to remain in post as Treasurer.

I am fortunate to be taking over the role in much calmer waters than in 2021. Pom has worked tirelessly on behalf of the ABA, not only during his Presidency, but for many years, and the trade as a whole has benefitted enormously from his forward thinking, dedication and dynamism. Thank you, Pom, for all that you have done, and all that you will no doubt continue to do on behalf of the rare book trade, and more formally in your role as the Chair of Firsts London. I have a hard act to follow!

Thanks too, must go to Daniel, whose fiscal prudence, and the triumphant ILAB Congress, means that we find ourselves in a more stable position than for some time. Especial thanks to Riley Grant: the number of personal tributes paid to her within the recent annual reports is a clear testament to how much we all rely on her, and the excellent job she does on our behalf as the first point of call for the Association.

May I also take the opportunity to thank Roger Treglown, who has stepped down from Council. First elected in 2000, he has taken on a number of roles, culminating in his Presidency from 2019-2021. The pandemic made for a challengingly two years and denied him an official hand-over to Pom, and so it was good that we could offer him our thanks and appreciation in person last Wednesday. Angus O’Neill is also stepping away from his advisory role on the Management Committee after several years. Recently elected as Vice President of ILAB, alongside Christopher Bailey as ILAB Treasurer, their roles ensure that the ABA will retain its prominent position internationally.

As a trade association, we have a wealth of knowledge and experience amongst our members that is second to none, and which forms the bedrock of the Association. We have a growing number of dealers setting out on their own, or gaining experience in established firms, and who bring with them new ideas and ways of connecting with customers. A number of those entering the Association are graduates of YABS, the brainchild of Anthony Smithson and Alice Laverty of Keel Row Books, with fellow director Jonathan Kearns. Now under the aegis of the ABA Educational Trust, I am sure that it will no doubt continue to prove to be an invaluable conduit for potential new members of the future.

Turning to book fairs, which are so vital and important to many of us, thanks to all who exhibited at Edinburgh. As always, it was pleasure to visit, albeit fleetingly, and it was good to see a steady stream of visitors, and the number of younger collectors in evidence which was encouraging to see. ...

So many members quietly work behind the scenes to help promote the Association, for which many thanks. It does not go unnoticed if perhaps not always trumpeted.

We have many wise heads and smart business brains sitting on Council, who represent the many facets of the book trade from several parts of the country, including sole traders working from home, smaller independent shop owners, long-established family firms, and larger, globally recognised companies. All care passionately about our trade and are extremely active and motivated. I may be the visible spokesperson for the next two years, but it is very much a collective effort, and we are all looking forward to the months ahead.

Deborah Coltham
ABA President

"Bibliomaniacs in Battersea" - The Times Literary Supplement writes of the London Rare Book Fair

When the fair first started in 1957, Attenborough was abroad filming along the Great Barrier Reef; this year he is cutting the tape, officially opening the event’s sixty-first outing. He is, as he put it, “unabashedly a collector”; he bought his first rare book when he was fifteen. It was On the Origin of Species, naturally – not the first edition but the sixth, in which Darwin introduced the word “evolution”.

To a collector, the specifics of different editions matter deeply, far more than they do to the general reader. They are an important element in the complex of features that determine how well a book fits one’s collection, how badly one wants it. Walter Benjamin observed that “the period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership – for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia”. As Attenborough notes wryly, one doesn’t necessarily collect books in order to read them.

This year the fair takes place in an exhibition centre in the middle of Battersea Park. It is vast. A hundred and eighty bookdealers have set up stalls, transporting their wares from Vienna, Vancouver, Sydney, San Francisco, among other places. These include your straightforward high-end treasures: an exquisite hand-coloured first edition of Vesalius, yours for £850,000; a Kelmscott Chaucer, £60,000; various early Shakespeare folios. There are also association copies: Alan Rickman’s Harry Potterbooks; one of the Thomas the Tank Engine stories signed by Ringo Starr. A fair few of the dealers specialize in modern first editions: Woolf’s Kew Gardens, set, printed and stitched by the Woolfs themselves; Joyce’s Ulysses in its Greek blue covers. It is like walking around the gallery of a major library, with the added thrill of knowing that, if you just sold one your vital organs, you might take home one of the exhibits.

>> This article was first published in the Times Literary Supplement and is reposted here with permission of the editor. View original article here.

"Direct contact with books remains the best way to create new vocations"

Jean-Marc, congratulations on your appointment as President of SLAM. Please give us a little background about yourself and your background in the trade?

I was born into a family of bibliophiles and was made aware of antiquarian books from an early age. I made my first significant purchase, a 16th century edition of Dante, when I was only 15 years old, spending all my savings, and since then the passion for antiquarian books has never left me. Like many of us, I had another profession before becoming a bookseller in 1998. I was then an engineer in a large French company but my consuming passion led me to give up this career and I chose to create an antiquarian bookshop in a small village of Touraine with beautiful Renaissance houses. From the start I specialised in 16th and 17th century books, the Renaissance being for me a particularly fascinating period in terms of ideas, beautiful editions and creative bindings. Since then I have published more than 50 catalogues, all of which contain a significant proportion of works on humanism and the Renaissance.

Jean-Marc, félicitations pour votre nomination au poste de président du SLAM. Pouvez-vous nous donner un bref aperçu de vous-même et de votre parcours dans le métier ?

Je suis né dans une famille de bibliophiles et j'ai été sensibilisé dès mon plus jeune âge au livre ancien. J'ai fait mon premier achat significatif, une édition de Dante du XVIe siècle alors que je n'avais que 15 ans en dépensant toutes mes économies et depuis la passion du livre ancien ne m'a plus quittée. Comme beaucoup d'entre nous, j'ai exercé une autre profession avant de devenir libraire en 1998. J'étais alors ingénieur dans une grande entreprise française mais ma passion dévorante me conduisit à renoncer à cette carrière et je choisis alors de créer une librairie ancienne dans un petit village de Touraine aux belles maisons Renaissance. Je me spécialisai dès le début dans les ouvrages des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, la Renaissance étant pour moi une période particulièrement fascinante tant sur le plan des idées que pour la beauté des éditions et la créativité des reliures. Depuis j'ai publié plus de 50 catalogues de livres anciens qui contiennent tous une part significative d'ouvrages sur l'humanisme et la Renaissance.

The past two years were exceptional for every bookseller in the ILAB network. How would you describe the rare book trade in France coming out of the pandemic?

The last two years have been very special because of the pandemic. Some colleagues have been adversely affected by the temporary closure of their shops, but on the whole the profession has fared well. Indeed, customers did not stop buying old books, and I would even say that many of us felt an increased interest in books during this period. We are all used to selling by mail order, and even if direct sales at fairs and in shops have slowed down, mail order sales have been strong. To compensate for shop closures, we at SLAM had set up "e-Salons" which allowed our members to present two or three times a year singular works at virtual events instead of fairs, and monthly "e-Rendezvous" in which everyone could exhibit and sell a few selected works. These new ideas were successful both with the booksellers and the customers who followed these events with interest. This year we have decided not to renew the monthly e-Rendezvous, which were no longer justified, but we have kept the "e-Salons" which still attract many customers.

Les deux dernières années ont été exceptionnelles pour tous les libraires du réseau LILA. Comment décririez-vous le commerce du livre rare en France au sortir de la pandémie ?

Les deux dernières années, ont été très particulières, du fait de la pandémie. Certains confrères ont été pénalisés par la fermeture temporaire de leur boutique, mais dans l'ensemble la profession a tiré son épingle du jeu. En effet les clients n'ont pas pour autant cessé d'acheter des livres anciens, et je dirai même que nous sommes nombreux à avoir ressenti un surcroit d'intérêt pour le livre durant cette période. Nous sommes tous habitué à vendre par correspondance, et même si la vente directe sur les salons et dans les boutiques a marqué le pas, les ventes par correspondance ont enregistré un rythme soutenu. Pour compenser les fermetures de boutique, nous avions mis en place au SLAM des "e-salons" qui permettaient à nos membres de présenter deux à trois fois par an des ouvrages singuliers lors d'événements virtuels en remplacement des foires, et des "e-rendez-vous" mensuels dans lesquels chacun pouvait exposer et vendre quelques ouvrages choisis. Ces nouveaux moyens ont rencontré un certain succès tant auprès des libraires que de la clientèle qui a suivi ces manifestations avec intérêt. Cette année nous avons décidé de ne pas renouveler les e-rendez-vous mensuels qui ne se justifiaient plus, mais nous avons conservé les "e-salons" qui attirent encore de nombreux clients.

What challenges do you see in the trade but also what possibilities ?

As far as the return to normality is concerned, it is obvious that the pandemic has left its mark on people's minds. And some traders have become accustomed to selling in a different way, especially on the Internet. The return to the shops and trade fairs is proving to be complicated: the pandemic is not yet completely behind us and other habits have been adopted, particularly by customers. Therefore, the number of visitors to salons has not returned to the level of the years before the pandemic, and the same is true for shops. However, I do not believe that this model is outdated. Some customers have lost the habit of crossing the threshold of a bookshop or coming to a book fair, but new customers have become interested in antiquarian and collectible books during the pandemic and will one day have the desire to see and hold books to make their choice. I think that attendance at fairs will gradually return to normal and that booksellers should not be discouraged but should instead encourage customers to attend again, convincing them that this is still the best way to make exciting discoveries while benefiting from the advice of professionals.

Over time, we have all noticed that Internet sales have continued to grow while the number of people visiting bookshops has fallen. For my part, I believe that we must be careful to rebalance our sales methods: abandoning book fairs and shops would ultimately be a mistake. Mail order sales ensure the financial sustainability of our businesses in the short term, but they are not the best way to educate and train new customers. Trade fairs, such as the one organised annually by SLAM, allow a great many people to see and touch books, some of whom will be tomorrow's customers. We also have the opportunity at these events to demonstrate our skills and ability to guide our customers in building their collections. We must collectively work to attract new clients and ensure the continuity of our profession in the future. The new tools at our disposal must not make us forget that direct contact with books remains the best way to create new vocations.

Quels défis voyez-vous dans le métier, mais aussi quelles possibilités ?

En ce qui concerne le retour à la normale, il est évident que la pandémie a laissé des traces dans les esprits. Et certains marchands se sont habitués à vendre autrement, notamment sur Internet. Le retour vers les boutiques et les salons s'avère compliqué : la pandémie n'est pas encore complètement derrière nous et d'autres habitudes ont été prises, notamment par les clients. Aussi la fréquentation des salons n'est pas remontée au niveau des années précédant la pandémie, et il en est de même pour les boutiques. Néanmoins, je ne crois pas que ce modèle soit pour autant périmé. Certains clients ont perdu l'habitude de franchir le seuil d'une librairie ou de venir chiner sur un salon, mais de nouveaux clients se sont intéressés au livre ancien ou de collection durant la pandémie et auront un jour le désir de voir et de prendre en mains des livres pour faire leur choix. Je pense que la fréquentation des salons reviendra progressivement à la normale et que les libraires ne doivent pas se décourager mais au contraire inciter les clients à se déplacer à nouveau, les convaincre que cela reste encore le meilleur moyen pour faire des découvertes passionnantes tout en profitant des conseils des professionnels que nous sommes.

Au fil du temps, nous avons tous constaté que les ventes sur Internet n'on cessé de croître tandis que l'affluence dans les librairies étaient en baisse. Pour ma part, je crois qu'il faut faire attention à rééquilibrer un peu nos modes de vente : délaisser les salons et les boutiques serait à terme une erreur. Les ventes par correspondance assurent à nos commerces une pérennité financière à court terme, mais ne sont pas le meilleur moyen pour sensibiliser et former de nouveaux clients. Les salons, comme celui qu'organise annuellement le SLAM permettent à de très nombreuses personnes de voir et de toucher des livres parmi lesquelles certaines seront les clients de demain. Nous avons aussi l'occasion lors de ces manifestations, de montrer nos compétences et notre capacité à guider nos clients dans la constitution de leur collection. Nous devons collectivement œuvrer pour intéresser de nouveaux clients et assurer la continuité de notre profession dans l'avenir. Les nouveaux outils mis à notre disposition ne doivent pas nous faire oublier que le contact direct avec les livres demeure le meilleur moyen de créer de nouvelles vocations.

C'est la raison pour laquelle le SLAM organise chaque année à Paris un salon remarquable qui attire près de 15000 visiteurs, clients et néophytes qui peuvent découvrir durant quatre jours la diversité de la librairie française et internationale, des expositions de bibliothèques prestigieuses, des artisans des métiers du livre, qui font la richesse du patrimoine que nous défendons. Cette année encore, le Salon du Livre Rare aura lieu fin septembre au Grand Palais Ephémère, au pied de la tour Eiffel et nous espérons vous y retrouver nombreux.


Jean-Marc, many thanks for this interview.

To contact Jean-Marc Dechaud, please follow this LINK.
Image courtesy of Jean-Marc Dechaud
Interview: Angelika Elstner

"Fair and just?" The German arts and rare book trade discuss provenance and restitution

This article was first published on the website of the German antiquarian booksellers association, Verband Deutscher Antiquare.

On 14 October 2019, more than 120 art dealers, gallery owners, lawyers, collectors and antiquarians met at the Munich auction house Karl & Faber to shed light on the historically and legally complex topic of Nazi looted art from the point of view of the market players.
A first.
The restitution of Nazi looted art is intensely discussed in public. Since the Washington Declaration in 1998 and the Joint Declaration of 1999, spectacular cases of restitution such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Berlin Street Scene" (Alfred Hess Collection, restituted 2006) or Paul Klee's "Swamp Carers" (Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers Collection, Comparison 2017) have made a name for themselves. In addition, the Federal Government and the Länder have taken measures, such as the establishment of the German Centre for the Loss of Cultural Assets, based in Magdeburg, and the Lost Art Database, which has been in existence since 2001, most recently the still highly controversial Cultural Assets Protection Act (Kulturgutschutzgesetz). The resulting challenges for dealers, trading in paintings, prints, books and manuscripts, are often relegated to the background. And it is precisely these questions that are of central, even existential importance for the art and antiquarian book market.

This makes it all the more important that the initiative of the Interessengemeinschaft Deutscher Kunsthandel (a joint initiative of, among others, the Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer and the Verband Deutscher Antiquare) to organise a conference titled "Fair und gerecht? Restitution und Provenienz im Kunstmarkt". The conference was attended by leading experts of the trade. However, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Monika Grütter, had neither appeared nor sent a representative - a "devastating" finding for Prof. Dr. Michael Wolfssohn. In his introductory lecture, Wolfssohn, whose family had waived restitution even after a trial lasting more than 12 years, pleaded for a "visualization" of the injustice committed. The art objects seized from Jewish families between 1933 and 1945 as a result of persecution carried a "Kain sign", the art trade and the public were obliged to point this out. "Justice is not enough", he said, "reconciliation" was important.

Legal uncertainty

It became clear in all lectures and plenary discussions how extremely difficult, and in many cases even impossible, it can be to establish law and justice in restitution cases of Nazi looted art almost 75 years after the end of the Nazi regime. A fundamental problem is the legal uncertainty. Even the Washington Declaration, in which 44 states, 12 non-governmental organizations and the Vatican voluntarily committed themselves to locating cultural property confiscated, stolen or seized for persecution during the Nazi era, to finding the rightful owners or their heirs, and to working out a fair and just solution for restitution or compensation, cannot change this. As a "soft law" (Michael Eggert), the Washington Declaration lacks any legal certainty. There are no legally binding guidelines, complained Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Papier, former president of the Federal Constitutional Court and chairman of the so-called Limbach Commission (advisory commission in connection with the restitution of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution). Dr. Papier sees it as the duty of the Federal Government to finally establish legal certainty by means of a moderate law that takes all sides into account. In the concluding panel discussion, there were unmistakable doubts as to whether the Federal Government would take on this task in the foreseeable future. How should the Federal Republic, how should public institutions as legal successors of the Nazi state deal with claims for compensation in the case of a restitution law? What would happen if such a law were to regulate not only the compensation of Nazi looted art, but also of real estate or company shares seized as a result of persecution? Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Hellwig stated in his controversial lecture on "Developments since the Washington Principles" that one probably did not want to risk social peace.

What is "reasonable"?

Hans-Jürgen Hellwig acted as a consultant for the Cultural Property Protection Act and is now regarded as one of its harshest critics. The law had been drafted with "fake facts", because there was no evidence, for example, that Germany was a money-laundering centre for antique dealers. The legislation, he continued, concentrated one-sidedly on the perspective of the then owners of paintings, graphics and other cultural assets, but ignored the situation of today's owners and did not provide any sensible guidelines for a private restitution of looted art. The current owners are only rarely identical with the descendants of the perpetrators. Many works of art were acquired in good faith decades ago by private collectors at auctions or in the trade, without having any information that they might be Nazi looted art. The situation was different for museums and archives that already existed during the Nazi era or were considered legal successors. In this role, they would have the duty to restitute, or at least to bring about a fair and just solution for all those involved in the sense of the Washington Declaration. Other agreements would have to be found for private restitutions.

What is fair and just? This question can only be answered through careful research into the provenance of all objects, stressed Dr. Uwe Hartmann of the German Centre for the Loss of Cultural Assets and Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister of the Central Institute for Art History. If a work of art were to fill a provenance gap, it would be under general suspicion. Hans-Jürgen Hellwig explained that the new law on the protection of cultural property imposed an extended provenance inspection obligation on the art trade, which ultimately meant that a dealer could only bring a work of art onto the market "if he had previously carried out provenance research to the point of economic ruin". According to Hellwig, this was "unconstitutional". Prof. Dr. Peter Raue agreed: Essential aspects of the Cultural Property Protection Act were unconstitutional, and it would be appropriate to correct this in an evaluation process. Provenance research has been part of everyday life for every retailer for decades, especially the larger auction houses have their own departments that deal with it, explained Dr. Rupert Keim of auction house Karl & Faber and Carl-Christof Gebhardt, former employee at Sotheby's Germany. But how much provenance research is economically feasible and reasonable? Art dealers and antiquarian bookshops not only feel largely left to their own devices by the federal government on this question, and are confronted with sometimes unfulfillable demands.

Insufficient - The Lost Art Database

All the more serious was the fact that the Lost Art Database operated by the German Centre for the Loss of Cultural Property had considerable shortcomings. Criticism of the database, which since 2001 has recorded cultural objects that were stolen, transferred or relocated as a result of the Nazi tyranny and the Second World War, was expressed in almost all of the lectures of the day. The information was too general and did not allow exact identification. It also contained works of art that had already been legally sold before 1930. For an entry in the Lost Art database, unproven allegations were sufficient; in the case of unjustified claims, however, the deletion of an entry was almost impossible. This makes these issues all the more fatal in view of the central role played by the Lost Art database in the decision of restitution cases. Carl-Christoph Gebhardt and Dr. Christoph Andreas of the Frankfurt art dealer J. P. Schneider emphasized that the database had "blackmail potential". Dr. Christina Berking, spokeswoman for IG Kunsthandel, put it in a nutshell: collectors are "pushed" by the state, by the public to restitution, "the main means of pressure" is the entry in the Lost Art database.

So what's next?

At the end of a long and insightful day, Christina Berking summarized the precarious situation of the art market. So far, there have been no binding solutions for the restitution of Nazi looted art from private sources. Different standards would have to be applied for the restitution of artworks from museums and archives. Collectors and dealers should finally be included in the Limbach Commission, which had previously only discussed cases of public restitution. The Federal Government and the Länder were obliged to draw up a restitution law that took into account the conditions of the art market and the private acquisition of works of art and included a law on compensation. So far, however, the political will to do so has been missing: "The state gets the required restitution virtually free of charge".

This forces the actors of the art market, who see themselves just as committed to the Washington Declaration as the public institutions, to act on a legally unclear basis and under constantly growing public pressure. The burden of proof can only be clearly clarified in a few cases. According to Dr. Rupert Keim at the auction house Karl & Faber, 11 cases have been restituted in recent years, although the evidence in none of the cases was unequivocal. It was important to make amends, to acknowledge the injustice that had occurred and to establish legal peace.

What do the descendants of the victims and legal owners need, what do today's owners need? How can both be brought to the same table and how can a fair and just solution be found for both? The trade has an important mediating function in this pressing problem. If the state continues to leave the trade alone in its efforts to find solutions, the limits of what is reasonable will soon be reached. Fair and just - this applies to all parties involved in every respect. "We have not found any solutions today, but we have discussed many solutions," summarized Christina Berking. The Munich conference was a strong, clear signal from the art trade to face up to the responsibility of history and to tackle the resulting problems together. That gives hope for the future.

Text and Images: Dr. Barbara van Benthem, VDA

"How can we ignore virtual fairs with numbers like these?"

Earlier this year, the ABA announced to run virtual fairs on a quarterly basis and has just finished its 3rd virtual fair of FIRSTS ONLINE. Why these additional virtual events and what is your feedback after running three fairs?

Virtual fairs including Firsts Online have provided a vital lifeline for many booksellers to showcase their stock to an international audience when many of their physical bookshops were shut during the pandemic. As mentioned, while virtual book fairs will never replace the in-person experience, Firsts Online has allowed our (ABA) members and colleagues to reach new and existing customers, trade between booksellers, and create awareness of their businesses.
We have worked hard to create a user-friendly experience for visitors to our Firsts Online website with improvements being made after each of the three fairs. Feedback from ABA members and exhibitors has been increasingly positive about the platform, demonstrating that we have a great online tool moving into the new year. We are making further adjustments ahead of the winter edition of Firsts Online fair running 18-23 February 2021.
The feedback from Firsts Online exhibitors has been that the we are getting mostly professional buyers, so dealers, librarians and the more committed collectors. The challenge moving forward into the new year will be to try to attract more new customers and a consumer audience to online book fairs.
Although we do not have a completely accurate count of business generated, we believe the June fair brought nearly £1m of trade, September over £500,000 and November £750,000. The majority of the exhibitors did some sort of business either during or after the fair. The top sales include several over £100,000. These numbers I think are significant, especially considering a stand only costs £150. For the future, how can we ignore Virtual Fairs with numbers like these?

What potential do you see in virtual fairs alongside physical fairs? Will you keep the virtual fairs running when physical fairs can take place again?

While we are all hopeful in-person book fairs will return in 2021, there is still a benefit of running these low-cost online book fairs for those who might not be able to travel abroad however do still wish to participate. At the moment, we are working with other ILAB associations to create a cohesive physical and online fair schedule for 2021 and ensure booksellers can continue to participate in book fairs in one form or another.

As to how the physical and virtual work together needs to be thought through carefully. You don’t want virtual cannibalising the physical. Also there is a matter of organisational resources. Running any fair is a serious amount of work, running two side by side will be a challenge!

Do you feel virtual fairs have changed the booksellers’ selling behaviour? Can you see long-term effects?

The concentrated nature of these events, only allowing up to 20 items forces the dealers to be more selective and thoughtful to what they are offering. I have overall been very impressed with the quality of material offered at Firsts London. It might make some more thoughtful how they present themselves at all fairs in the future.

We all want the fairs to be part of our life again. FIRSTS London will move to the Saatchi Gallery in May, an exciting new venture for the ABA! What can booksellers expect?

We are thrilled to be hosting Firsts London at Saatchi Gallery from 21-23 May 2021, where we expect to call the venue home for the foreseeable future. The decision to move to Saatchi Gallery followed overwhelming feedback from ABA members and exhibitors to secure a higher-profile location for the fair. We are very positive that the gallery's museum-quality spaces and large cultural following will offer a superior platform for exhibitors to connect with their customers. Due to the enduring effects of the covid-19 pandemic, we are working to ensure the latest health and safety guidelines will be met and the fair is safe for both our exhibitors and visitors.

"Im Herzen Afrikas" - An Exceptional Catalogue From Antiquariat Dr. Paul Kainbacher

By Frank Werner


It does not happen all that often that an old antiquarian bookseller sees a catalogue and thinks, a little enviously: “I wish that was one of mine.“ Paul Kainbacher’s latest catalogue “Im Herzen Afrikas” is one of those.

The presentation is generous, in a large quarto format. Nearly every item is illustrated in colour. The numbering, which often makes a catalogue lifeless, has been omitted. The text is set in single or double columns, which does not make reading hectic, rather it adds a component of surprise and dynamics. Well, these are externals, it is the content that counts. But still, a mood is set, the reader is curious and elated.

Yes, and the reader is rewarded with a scope of books on Africa that spans five centuries and ranges between € 25 and € 250,000. There is something here for every budget, every taste and every part of Africa. The description of the less expensive or very well known books are short, Kainbacher knows that his customers are familiar with the standard works of their chosen field.

I hardly know where to begin. The catalogue contains so many highlights that I tend to forget that even the “standard” titles are important and hard to find. There is so much to be discovered. Already the second item is something special. It is a collection of photographs, calling cards and about 150 letters from the estate of Carl Ebenau, who was general agent of the German East African Company in the late 19th century (€ 5,500). A very scarce book by the Austrian geologist Freiherr Drasche von Wartinberg “Die Insel Reunion (Bourbon) im Indischen Ozean. Eine geologisch-petrographische Studie … “ is offered for € 7,500. Every collector of Africana knows that Harnier’s “Reise am Oberen Nil” is rarely found complete, and often in poor condition. Here we have a good, clean copy in the original binding. (€ 14,000).

Ludwig Ritter von Höhnel was an Austrian naval officer, geographer and explorer, chiefly of Africa. He accompanied Count Teleki’s expedition into Central Africa. One of the results of this expedition, printed in manuscript, is “Bergprofil Sammlung während Graf S. Telekis Afrika Expedition 1887-88”, with many folding profiles (€ 19,000). Höhnel later accompanied the American W. A. Chanler to Kenia. This voyage is documented in two unique collections. The first contains 53 original photographs by Höhnel, taken during this and other voyages between 1892 and 1905. The other lot is a collection of letters written during the Höhnel-Chanler Expedition, plus correspondence from and with Höhnel (€ 25,000 per lot). A unique insight into the life and work of this important Austrian explorer.

A real classic of Africana is Kolb’s “Caput Bonei Spei Hodiernum (1719)”, which describes the Cape of Good Hope and its inhabitants (€ 11,000). Vasco da Gama was the first to circumnavigate Africa. His epochal voyage is described in the oldest and most expensive book in the catalogue, Montalboddo’s “Newe unbekanthe landte Und ein newe weldte in Kurtz verganger zeythe erfunden (Nürnberg 1508)”. This post incunable also describes other notable voyages of the time, amongst them that of Columbus (€ 250,000). Lastly I should mention the astounding set of six huge tomes by David Roberts “The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia”, sumptuously illustrated with 250 tinted or coloured lithographs. It is one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth century publishing (€ 115,000).

Seeing all these unique, wonderful and rare books described here, one should not forget that the catalogue also contains many other scarce and important items that will make any collector’s heart beat faster. So, my advice to you is: Do yourself and your collection a favour. Order the catalogue and order from the catalogue!

If you should be in Austria on 14th March, go to the charming town of Baden near Vienna and visit Paul Kainbacher’s “Bibliophile Evening”. Not only will you be able to view the books described in the catalogue, but there will also be two talks on the exploration of Africa by professors of the University of Vienna.

I admire Paul Kainbacher for finding new paths in a field that was supposed to have been well-trodden. His catalogue is a well-ordered repository of extraordinary books, manuscripts and items, accompanied by knowledgeable descriptions. And if anyone should ask “Quid novi ex Africa?” I can say with confidence: “See Kainbacher’s catalogue!”

Antiquariat Dr. Paul Kainbacher


Eichwaldgasse 1
A-2500 Baden
AUSTRIA

Catalogue order: send an email!

Website: www.antiquariat-kainbacher.at

"Listen to ideas!" An Interview with the ABA's new president Pom Harrington

We sat down with Pom Harrington (owner of Peter Harrington Ltd), the ABA’s newly elected President following the Association’s Annual General Meeting held in March. Already a well-known name in the industry, we wanted to know how he would be approaching his new role.

Congratulations on your new appointment to President of the ABA. Over the years, you have held several roles on Council, how are you feeling taking on this new role in 2021?

Having been involved at various levels over the years, it is a nice and proud moment for me. Originally, I started on the Chelsea Book Fair in the mid 90’s and became more involved from there. The last year has been a challenging time for the ABA, but thinking optimistically, I think there are some really exciting things around the corner and I am looking forward to leading the ABA into this new period.

Are there aspects of the role that you are looking forward to the most? Any challenges you are keen to tackle?

One aspect of working for the ABA I’ve really enjoyed and benefited from is meeting other dealers that I wouldn’t ordinarily meet. In the short time I have been in charge, I have already had interesting conversations with dealers I wouldn’t have otherwise have contact with.
For the year ahead, we (the ABA) have several new book fairs (online and physical) to oversee. A special one day, trade only fair in York, the Transatlantic Book Fair in July with the ABAA and of course Firsts London at Saatchi in October. As Chairman of Firsts, we asked what dealers wanted for a book fair and the answer was a prime central London location. With Saatchi, we got it. A truly world class venue in a superb area. Following a couple necessary postponements, we really are looking forward to putting a premier book fair. The challenge is making sure all these components occur successfully both in attendance and financially for the ABA.

How has the trade changed or evolved during your time in the ABA?

First and foremost, the internet. The influence of the web cannot be overstated. It has swept through and those that have adapted to the changes are the ones that have thrived. The effects of the pandemic have accelerated the influence.

Second is the influence of the auction houses. They have gone from trade supplier to trade competitor. More and more they are striking out for the private buyer and sale. The larger auction houses are now becoming more and more retail shops. Watch out for “buy it now” and other private purchase opportunities from these houses. Coming soon.

Having been part of council for many years, as well as having been raised in a prominent bookselling family, do you have a philosophy for the Presidency?

Listen to ideas. We need new ideas all the time. There are many opportunities for us as a trade, but to get anything going requires a forum that allows this to happen. We have a lot of talented book sellers in our trade, and I will be inviting as many as possible to get involved with various committees and projects that are coming up. By bringing in more now, you increase the talent pool for future councils.

Many of our members have had a challenging year due to the global pandemic, do you have any recommendations or words of advice for our dealers as they transition out of the lockdowns and adjust to the ‘new normal’?

Watch out for your overheads, most have been quite spoiled by the reduction. They will come back. Also I think a bit of patience. Might take a while to get some of our old regulars back to the shops.

If you had not become an antiquarian bookseller, what profession would you have chosen to pursue?

No idea. I only really got involved because I had nowhere else to go. If you asked me as a teenager what I wanted to do, the only thing I was certain about was not being a bookseller. However after working a few months for my dad and uncle, I really got my teeth stuck into it.

Have there been particular ABA members over the years that have inspired you or impacted you positively?

I always admired the way Hilton Baynton Coward lead. He was kind to me as a youngster. In the US, Lou Weinstein was also tremendously supportive and very inspirational. The whole Heritage Bookshop model was a marvel to behold and one I aspired to.

Once the UK is out of lockdown, is there one particular restaurant or venue in London that you are eager to visit?

Dinner with my son and friends followed by a Chelsea Game. Been too long...

Read the full ABA Newsletter - April 2021
ABA Newsletter April 2021 Cover

"Meet the New Old Book Collectors" and "Judging a Book by Its Dust Jacket"

A wonderful selection of young, rare booksellers but also collectors visiting the most recent New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, were interviewed by the New York Times' Kate Dwyer.

"Late last month, during the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, Rebecca Romney withdrew a copy of “Howl, Kaddish, and Other Poems,” by Allen Ginsberg from her booth’s display case. She did so not to recite from its pages but to show off the writing in the margins.
Amy Winehouse had puzzled out lyrics to an unrecorded song alongside Ginsberg’s lines. “You see her artistic process,” Ms. Romney said. “And it’s right next to someone else’s art that she was consuming while creating something new.” The Ginsberg text is the centerpiece of Ms. Winehouse’s 220-book collection, which Ms. Romney’s company, Type Punch Matrix, near Washington, D.C., is in talks to sell as a unit for $135,000. “It shows a life lived through books,” she said.
Ms. Romney is an established seller known to “Pawn Stars” fans as the show’s rare books expert. But at 37, she represents a broad and growing cohort of young collectors who are coming to the trade from many walks of life; just across the aisle, Luke Pascal, a 30-year-old former restaurateur, was presiding over a case of letters by Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

Michael F. Suarez, the director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, said that these days, his students are skewing younger and less male than a decade ago, with nearly one-third attending on full scholarships.

...

Brynn Whitfield, a 36-year-old tech publicist, started collecting antique chess books five years ago. “I’m getting more and more compliments about having these items in my house,” she said. “People think it’s cooler than typical coffee table books.”Though used book sales thrive online, most sellers believe there’s a serendipity that only browsing in person can offer.“In our time, so much is trying to sell you what the machine thinks that you want already,” said Josiah Wolfson, the 34-year-old proprietor of Aeon Bookstore, a subterranean shop in Lower Manhattan. “I don’t want to presuppose what everybody is looking for, even if they are collecting a specific thing.”

Extract from
New York Times, 7 May 2022 by Kate Dwyer

The full article can be downloaded with a subscription HERE.

"New Trends in the International Antiquarian Book Trade" - Lecture given at the 30th ILAB Congress in Tokyo 1990 by Anthony Rota


The exact title of my talk this morning is unimportant, for no matter what subject you set an antiquarian bookseller, no matter what he is supposed to be speaking about, he will end up talking about books. It is in his nature: he cannot do otherwise. Nevertheless I do not propose to speak only about books, but also about bookshops and booksellers, the structure of the book trade and the very mechanics of bookselling. I do so in the hope that librarians and book collectors are not without interest in the way in which books reach them, and in the factors which influence the prices that those books command.

Most of what I have to say will necessarily be based on my experience of western books and, to a lesser extent, western markets, for that is where my experience (almost 40 years of it now) lies. Nevertheless the very first point that I want to make is that the bookselling community is now, more than ever before, an international one. Throw a stone into the bookselling pond while standing in New York and the ripples will spread out to Amsterdam. An increase in demand for a particular type of book here in Tokyo will be reflected in prices in the London auction rooms.

The reasons for this increasing interdependence of what used to be very separate geographical markets are really very basic: they are the developments which have made the world so much smaller a place than it seemed to us in 1940 or even in 1950…


Auctions


One trend which I personally do not welcome unreservedly is the growing prominence of the auction houses. Here I speak not so much of the firms which are part retail booksellers and part auctioneers, as is often the practice on the continent of Europe. Rather am l concerned with the multinational corporations whose growing power in the market seems to me to have dangerous implications for the long term health of the bookseller’s trade. The auction houses used to be primarily wholesalers. That is to say that they sold books in quite large lots, and most of their buyers were dealers who would divide the lots up and sell them to their own customers volume by volume.

Now the major auction houses and l speak particularly of Sotheby's and Christie's - employ powerful publicity and public relations machines to woo and court the private buyer. Their publicity campaigns have been so successful that there is now an alarming tendency for all the best libraries and collections to go for auction when the time comes for them to be sold, and fewer and fewer private collections are in consequence offered to the bookshops.

In their defence the auction houses tell us that they have created many new customers for us, and that they have moved prices upwards to everyone’s advantage. That they have found new markets may be good, but my fear is that the new prices run the risk of making book collecting a hobby that only the very rich can afford.

Geographical Movements


In October 1990 nobody in this room will need me to remind them that we live in a time of highly volatile exchange rates. What may not be remembered is that this was not always the case. Changes in the relationship between the pound and the dollar, between the Deutschmark and the yen, did take place of course, but they tended to be more gradual.

Certainly the strength of the dollar through the 1950s and 1960s meant that the trade across the Atlantic was almost entirely from east to west, from Europe to the United States. By the 1980s things changed a little and dealers from Great Britain and continental Europe were able to buy regularly and profitably in North America. Indeed one highly successful bookseller in Washington D.C. tells me that sales to visiting British booksellers now form an important part of his turnover.

Also in the 1980s we saw in increase in the flow of Western books from Europe and America into Japan, influenced no doubt by the relative strength of the yen against the dollar and the European currencies, particularly the pound. Latterly we have also seen the beginning of a keen demand from South Korea.

In addition to these stately flows of material following the long-term strengths of various currencies and economies, I have been amused to note various smaller eddies and flurries. For example if the pound fell five cents against the dollar we could count on an early visit from a certain California bookseller. If the Swiss franc strengthened by 10% a dealer from Geneva would arrive in London the next day. I little thought when I became a bookseller that I should have to pay such close attention to the financial pages of the newspapers!


Loss of City Centre Book Shops


Perhaps the trend which I most deplore is the marked diminution, in the Western world, in the number of traditional second-hand bookshops in city centres, particularly provincial town and city centres. From what I hear and see the situation is healthier here in Japan, but in Europe and North America good, old-fashioned, general second-hand and antiquarian bookshops are becoming quite scarce. Do not misunderstand me: the number of dealers is not diminishing, indeed it is growing; it is the medium-sized firm with a 'walk-in' bookshop which is disappearing. The reason of course is the high cost of operating in city centres. It seems that only airline offices, supermarkets and clothes boutiques can profitably occupy city centre sites today. As a result we have seen and are continuing to see two distinct and opposed movements in the pattern of antiquarian bookselling.

First there is the move towards one-man specialist firms. Such businesses usually operate from apartments in the residential quarter of the city, or from rooms in private houses in the country. I think of this as the 'cottage industry' style of bookselling. The other and contrary trend is for more and more business to pass into the hands of fewer and fewer large and powerful firms. The one-man specialist firms provide a very useful service. Their expertise and the degree of personal attention they give represent a great boon to the book-buying community at large - but there is a drawback. A librarian or book collector visiting a distant city, perhaps in another country, could easily visit its bookselling district, its Charing Cross Road, its Fourth Avenue or its Kanda. A number of shops could be seen in the course of the day. It is much harder to make a tour of the one-man business, some of which are located at remote addresses. Moreover the mere fact of having to telephone to make an appointment, and perhaps having to walk through a man's drawing room to reach the cases where he has his stock, creates an artificial atmosphere between buyer and seller. There is not the same freedom to roam the shelves and to buy or not entirely as one pleases.

Does it really matter? The answer has to be 'yes'. We are losing the base of the pyramid, the street-level, open access shop, where both young dealers and tyro-collectors are trained. Moreover booksellers operating from offices or from home do not enjoy the same buying opportunities as those in conventional shops.

It can be argued that the world's stock of rare books is divided into two parts: those that the world knows about and those that it hasn't discovered yet. The first kind sets us no problem, but the second kind is a cause for concern. Owners who are not themselves collectors of rare books, but who have perhaps inherited a small library from a husband, a father or an uncle, might well approach the bookseller in his familiar shop in their local High Street. Certainly most of us have bought many good books from just such a beginning. The seller I have in mind would be less likely to seek out a dealer in a remote cottage in rural England or rural New England for that matter.

Because the general open-access bookshop is vanishing, the world of rare books is thus losing in three ways: the training ground for assistants; the place for young collectors to cut their teeth, as it were, on relatively inexpensive books; and a chance to buy unsuspected rarities. If this were an ecological talk instead of a bibliographical talk I should be speaking about the danger to the species when the habitat, the feeding-ground, is in peril.


Fashion in First Edition Collecting


Now let me turn for a moment to one of my own firm's specialities, the field of modern first editions, that is to say first editions of English Literature of the last hundred years. I would like to dwell briefly on two up-to-the-minute trends, neither of which I think is wholly healthy. The first is the seeming insistence of collectors on all seeking to collect the same handful of authors. A particular writer suddenly becomes and everyone wants his books. We have seen this happen in the cases of, for example, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Fowles, D.M. Thomas, and Ted Hughes. I could name many more. For months, perhaps even for a year or two, everyone wants books by these authors. Then fashion changes, and prices, which have been lifted artificially high, tend to tumble, often quite dramatically.

This insistence on fashion, which one of my colleagues has wittily dubbed 'flavour-of-the-month' bookselling, has led to the second trend, the trend towards a highly selective market. Thus it is that prices for the so-called 'fashionable' authors have climbed to near-ridiculous heights, while the work of steady, solid, major writers (Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham and George Moore are just three examples) hardly sells at all, however cheaply priced.

The next trend I want to speak of is towards insistence on the presence of the dust- jacket. Now the origin of the dust-jacket was as a protection to keep the book itself in fine state until it had been sold. Then it was thought quite proper to discard the jacket and to shelve the book without it. But of course the jacket came to serve various other purposes as time went by. It was a promotional aid, a marketing tool, and in its way a small poster. It often contained bibliographical information both about the volume it covered and other books. Increasingly frequently it bore words of praise by other famous writers.. Increasingly the artwork would be that of a distinguished artist. For all these reasons my firm has always preached that it was worth paying a premium to buy a copy in the dust-jacket as opposed to one that lacked it. Now, however, things seem to me to have gone too far. A new generation of collectors has been constrained never to buy a book without a jacket- and that means that some of them are going to have gaps on their shelves for a very long time. Moreover the price differential between books with and without their dust-jackets has now reached seemingly absurd levels.

Let me give you two examples. In 1982, when ordinary copies of the first edition of H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon, without dust-jackets, could be bought for perhaps $60, a copy in the dust-jacket was offered for sale in America for no less than $4,500.

In 1981, when copies of Kenneth Grahame's classic The Wind in the Willows, without jacket, could regularly be bought for £250, a copy in the jacket brought £3,200 at Sotheby's in London.


Prices


Since my task today is to talk about new trends in book-collecting I do not propose to say much about prices, for there is nothing new about their continuing upward movement. A colleague who has been a bookseller in Great Britain for 30 years, tells me that as a rough yardstick and a guide to today's prices, he multiplies by thirty the figures at which books were sold when he first came into the trade. Make the experiment on books with which you yourself are familiar. Quite often I think you will find that even thirty is not a large enough multiplier.

Are high prices good or bad? They sometimes have the virtue of attracting onto the market more copies of particularly rare titles. They certainly have the effect on book-selling firms of causing them to need much more capital; indeed many of the largest and most powerful firms in the market today rely quite heavily on outside money, whether it comes from banks or from private investors. I remember how surprised I was to see the head of a particularly distinguished London firm walking into Sotheby's one morning accompanied by no less a figure than his bank manager! Such a thing would have been unheard of even twenty years ago.


Book Fairs


ln Tokyo this week there is a splendid and exciting example of the very best in Antiquarian Book Fairs. Fairs such as this have, at least in modern times, a fairly short history. Their modern development can be said to have begun in London. Now major fairs are held regularly, some of them with sales comfortably in excess of two and a half million pounds. Smaller fairs proliferate. I do not think there is a weekend when there is not at least one fair somewhere in Great Britain, for example, and I believe they take place in America with equal frequency. 'Whether fairs are 'a good thing' or 'a bad thing' is a subject in itself. I do not propose to discuss it at length now, but would merely point out that the small fairs, (as opposed to the large and carefully regulated fairs sponsored by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers and its member associations) give those seeking to enter the antiquarian book trade an effective and inexpensive way of doing so. What I regret is that these newcomers, welcome though they may be, do not necessarily serve an apprenticeship in an established firm, and thus acquire the training and experience which I believe to be necessary if they are to serve the public in the best traditions of the trade.


Catalogues


Despite the phenomenon of the Book Fair, the bookseller's catalogue remains a very important way of selling books. It is true that there are booksellers who never issue catalogues at all, but these are a definite and small minority.

I have made no statistical analysis of the number of catalogues that arrive on my desk every week, but I have a very clear impression that the quantity has grown markedly in recent years and is still growing.

Again I have undertaken no research to prove the point, but I am sure that the standard of scholarship in these catalogues has also risen and is continuing to rise. The new generation of dealers seems to make good use of the flood of bibliographies published in recent times. Indeed, if anything they make too much use of them, giving bibliographical citations for commonplace and straightforward books which present no bibliographical problems either to buyer or to seller.

It has always been said that booksellers' catalogues make good reading, whether or not one has any serious intention of buying the books that they list. In some cases that is particularly true where specialists have gathered together an impressive assemblage of books in one particular field and present them with scholarly footnotes which advance our knowledge in that area. I could give many examples but I will choose only one, a fine series of catalogues devoted to books about architecture, issued by Mr Ben Weinreb. These are models of what such things ought to be, and make me proud of my chosen calling.

There is a difference between catalogue footnotes which are genuinely informative and those which merely make gratuitous value-judgments. The former may perhaps cast new light on even the most familiar of books and can add to our knowledge. The latter simply give half-baked, home-spun philosophical reflections on books which need no help of this sort to sell them. I have in mind one dealer who catalogued The Bible with the footnote that although no believer himself, he thought it a great work of literature! Some booksellers in the western world find the easiest way to obtain footnotes is to quote liberally from the Dictionary of National Bibliography. So many dealers now follow this practice indiscriminately that I sometimes suspect that if all the footnotes extracted from the DNB in the course of one year were put together with scissors and paste, the entire thirty-one volumes of that mighty reference work could be reconstructed!

On a happier note I am quite sure that typographical standards in catalogue production are improving dramatically. A number of dealers have employed the very best professional typographers to design house styles for them. Others use computers, and the desk-top publishing programmes that they bring with them, to produce clear print at a reasonable price. The days of barely legible lists, run off in a basement on an aged and badly serviced duplicating machine are surely past us now.

I said that desk-top publishing programmes helped to keep costs down, but printing is not cheap and postage costs are also a considerable factor in the economics of bookselling. These two considerations between them are bringing changes in the pattern of catalogue distribution. In earlier days, while booksellers eagerly sought new names to put onto their mailing list, they hardly ever gave attention to taking names off it. Private collectors might well remain on a list until the time of their death, even if they made scarcely a single purchase. Libraries were probably never removed from mailing lists at all. How all that has changed. Today I know of no dealer who does not regularly prune his mailing list, removing from it automatically those who have not ordered for a specified period of time. Nowadays this weeding-out process applies almost as rigorously to libraries as it does to private collectors.

Equally, more and more booksellers are inviting customers to subscribe to their mailing lists, i.e. to pay for the catalogues they wish to receive. In my own view this is a trend that can only go so far. It is all very well to ask those who seem to collect catalogues rather than books to contribute to the cost of their hobby, but my sympathy is with the customer who said that being asked to pay for booksellers' catalogues was like being asked to pay for the showcases in which the jeweller displayed the rings and brooches which my friend occasionally bought for his wife.


The Pattern of Demand


Just as there have been changes in the geographical pattern of demand over the last several decades, so there have been switches in emphasis in the importance of particular categories of book buyer. The 1950s saw the beginnings of an upsurge in buying by university libraries, particularly in North America. This was partly as a result of what was known as 'the learning explosion', when every eighteen-year-old seemed determined to exercise what he saw as his right to a university education. In consequence small universities became large ones. What had been teachers' training colleges became fully fledged universities. In both instances the institutions thought to demonstrate their new stature by building a library of rare books. This was a period of almost indiscriminate expansion and it came to its peak in the mid-1960s. By then the buying power of American universities was the despair of many private collectors, who felt they were being priced out of the market.

After that apogee various factors began to combine to reverse the swing of the pendulum. First there was the demographic shift. The number of children reaching university-age started to dwindle. This brought about a decrease in the capitation fees paid to universities from central government. Then there was the spirit of anti-elitism that was abroad in the land. Suddenly spending tax dollars on rare books and manuscripts seemed a less worthy thing to do. Furthermore there was disenchantment after the unrest on many United States campuses. At the same time inflation added to universities' budget problems. Rare books had always been regarded as the icing on the cake. When there was not enough money to buy all the cake that was wanted, the icing had to go.

Happily for booksellers, demand from the private sector took up much of the slack. And books that would once have been sold to institutional libraries were bought instead for private collections.

For the bookseller this was a mixed blessing. He had lost his wholesale buyers, who might order fifty or a hundred items from a catalogue, and buy author and subject collections en bloc, and had exchanged them for exacting private buyers, purchasing on a volume by volume basis. The bookseller therefore had to work much harder to produce the same results.

On the other hand there was a hidden bonus. When a book is sold to a university library it has, save in the rarest circumstances, vanished from the market for all time. What a dealer sells to a private collector he has a reasonable hope of buying back again, either from the collector when he changes his interests, or possibly from the collector’s estate in the fullness of time.

Here in Japan in the years just past, there has been a great increase in university buying. The word is that that particular trend has now been reversed. Whether that is so you will know better than I.

We have spoken of changes in the relative importance of different categories of buyer. Now let us look for a moment at the changes in demand for different categories of material.

One phenomenon of the 1950s, directly related to the growth in research libraries in the United States of America, was an upsurge in the interest paid by academics to the manuscripts of 20th century literature, not excluding work by living writers. The best single example, and certainly the most intellectual, was at the University of Texas, where the Chancellor was determined to turn his library into one of the best and most celebrated in the western world. Starting several hundred years after Yale and Harvard, he knew that it was too late to try to match the holdings of those institutions in early books and manuscripts. He therefore decided to concentrate on the papers of 20th century writers (which older institutions had virtually ignored) demonstrating as he did so, how much could be learned about the lives of authors and about the history of publishing from a study of manuscripts and correspondence files. Of course such material also reveals a great deal about the creative process itself.

The activities of the University of Texas, soon followed, albeit to a lesser degree, by many other universities in North America, caused a serious drain of these literary resources from the United Kingdom which, rather belatedly, began to show an interest in the manuscripts of its own contemporary literature. The market forged ahead through the 1960s and 70s, and only began to slow when temporary changes in policy in Texas combined with a restriction on university budgets generally. It think it is fair to say that today manuscripts of major writers still sell very well, but it is hard to find a buyer for some of the minor writers whose papers would have been snapped up very quickly, even ten years back.

The period we have been looking at this morning also saw a swing in demand from the products of men’s imagination (poetry and fiction) to landmarks in science and philosophy. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the high prices now paid for works listed in the monumental catalogue Printing and the Mind of Man published in 1967. Books as diverse as the first edition of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, Lord Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys, (which had a bearing on the raising of entire generations of children, not just in Britain but across the world), and works on the discovery of electricity and penicillin - all these are now keenly sought out. Their worth is recognised by all where previously it had been left to lone pioneers (such as the late Percy Muir, one of the founders of the ILAB), to point out their virtues and to attempt to draw the interest of collectors and librarians to them.

I sense that there has been a growing awareness and interest in the mechanics of book production, the history of the way in which books are made and have been made since 1455. There has always been keen demand for the first book printed in moveable type, the first book with illustrations, the first book printed in a particular country and so on. Latterly that interest has developed and extended to more recent times and more recent processes. We are at this moment at something of a watershed in the history of printing. The last few years have seen more changes in printing technology than occurred in the whole of the preceding five hundred years. For practical purposes printing from hot metal is now a thing of the past. Thus it is that collectors eagerly seek out such things as the first book printed with the aid of a film-setting process. This is a demand which I expect to continue.

Another new area of collecting is what might be described as “Industrial Archaeology”: early books on street lighting, both by gas and be electricity, for example, or books on the provision of clean water supplies to urban areas. I am told that the buyers for these books are not the traditional book collectors, but an entirely new market, including some of the younger academics at some of the newer universities. Interest in the subject and the development of the new market are both very much to be welcomed.

In my own specialised field of modern English and American literature collectors have become much more sophisticated. It used to be the case that they were content co collect only the first printing of each book by the authors in whim they were interested. Now they build author collections in much greater depth. In the case of English authors, for example, they seek not just the first edition published in England but the first American edition as well. They are anxious to have significant new editions too, and set out to build collections which chart the entire publishing industry of their chosen authors. This is a trend which we can only applaud.


Investment


You may well expect me to say something about investments; certainly that is one of the trends that has occupied some dealers’ minds in recent years. Investment in rare books is not a new phenomenon, but of late it has certainly been on the increase. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that investment analysts and financial advisers noted the acceleration in the rate of increase in book prices. Another is that, in days of high inflation and uncertainty about money values, people have increasingly been seeking to put their savings into objects rather than share certificates, hoping that the objects would rise in price at least as fast as money fell in value.

Is this increase in investment in rare books wholly a good thing? Personally I have reservations. They arise from stories I heard at my father’s knee about the crash in the 1930s. Of course the situation then was vastly different: books had been driven up in price far beyond the levels that were truly supported by their significance and their rarity. Nowadays I believe that prices although high, are more soundly based.

It remains of the first importance for those who would seek to invest in books to get the best possible professional advice. Nor should they look for quick returns. The dealer’s margin on the buying and selling of a book is obviously far greater that the stockbroker’s margin on stocks and shares. It therefore takes longer for prices to increase sufficiently to cover this margin. It is also crucial to choose the right time to sell. That is why the more conservative booksellers would argue that only that part of a customer’s funds which he can afford to have tied up for some time should be put in the book market. Danger comes when too many investment buyers all decide to sell at once.

This having been said, book prices are now at a level where customers need to think seriously about the potential re-sale value of the books they buy. My personal believe is that the best reason for buying a book is because one likes it: if it happens to go up in value then that is a bonus.

I suspect that investment buying will be with us for many years to come, but it is still only a small part of the whole antiquarian book trade and I for one hope that it will remain so.


Conclusion


These then are some of the changes and some of the trends in the antiquarian book trade today. Booksellers, like the collectors and librarians they serve, are conservative creatures. By their very nature they are resistant to change; yet they are caught up in the changes that beset us today, and if they do not welcome them they must at least learn to adapt to them if they are to flourish. The antiquarian book trade has managed to cope with changes over a number of centuries now, and I do not doubt for a moment that it will continue to do so.

"Now is not the time to just survive but to thrive; a time to rethink how we communicate and do business with others"

1. Sheryl, the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America is now launching its second virtual fair, this time in lieu of the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. Can you give us a little overview of the upcoming fair?

Thanks Angelika, the Boston Virtual Book Fair (BVBF) has over 175 ABAA and ILAB exhibitors from 13 countries. There will be a little over 7,000 items for sale. There are several options for shopping the VBF – You may run to your favorite Exhibitors first or randomly browse by Booth, by Product type, by Category, by Price and of course by Keyword search. The Ticketed Preview day, benefiting the Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund is November 12 beginning at 11 am EST. Free admission begins at 11 am EST on November 13th , with the fair ending at 7 pm EST on November 14th .

2. How do you replicate the atmosphere of a book fair in the virtual space?

Finding a way to take the time-honored tradition of book fairs and move those “stalls and
booths” onto the Cloud is quite a task. Can we provide exhibitors and customers a way to
interact and shop as they would at an in-person fair? Can a video chat replace the in-person
contact? The simple answers are you can’t and it doesn’t.
That said, the VBF is a vehicle to bring collectors, curators and exhibitors together for the
intended purpose, albeit differently. A Zoom chat with a collector or curator isn’t the same as an in-person chat, but it’s a pretty close alternative.
Additionally, we are offering a Preview on opening day. We are also having public programs and other in-person fair events via Zoom. The "by Booth" function was designed to replicate the serendipity of walking the aisles and finding that unexpected treasure. The VBF includes “Featured” items, represented those items that would be prominently displayed in display cases at an in-person fair.
In the tradition of the Boston in-person fairs, we are offering Discovery items (items under $100) for emerging collectors. Exhibitors will add new items as items to replace sold items throughout the fair. Discovery and New Items will be flagged as such.

3. Undoubtedly everyone is eagerly waiting for physical book fairs to return, to meet
customers and colleagues and simply see the books. However, what are the advantages of a virtual fair?

As with many make-shift innovations, there are unexpected benefits — the obvious - you don’t
have to leave home, fly or pack your wares. The virtual fair also allows those prohibited by
distance and/or cost from traveling to faraway places to now exhibit at a fair to participate. It allows customers to search the entire fair, quickly by Product type, Category, Price or Keyword
for those with special interests.
An unexpected benefit I’ve heard from collectors, librarian and booksellers is the ability to get to better understand the depth of an Exhibitors inventory. Even after items are sold, they remain in the fair adding to this knowledge base.
Most importantly during “Covid time “as said before, it gives the trade a collective way to
reconnect with collectors and librarians. When the fair begins one experiences the same
excitement as an in-person fair.


4. The ABAA’s virtual fairs are developed in cooperation with Biblio, an independent
marketplace for booksellers and collectors. How does the model work?


Our technical partner Biblio provides the platform for the VBF. The only fee for Exhibitors are
booth related fees, there are no commission. Biblio will also provide credit card processing for
those who wish for a small fee. To participate the Exhibitor must register, at no charge, on
Biblio as a dealer, as the platform is managed by Biblio. The Exhibitor completes the registration information only once and will be retained from all fairs. The Exhibitor only need to complete this process once. For subsequent VBFs, it’s one click to participate. Exhibitors may either upload or manually enter books for VBFs. Following the fair all items are removed from the fair platform. If Exhibitors sell on abaa.org or and of the biblio websites (.com, .uk, .au, .nz) those items can be transferred to those sites after the VBF.

5. Last but not least, what did you take from these unprecedented months since March in the rare book trade?

Now is not the time to just survive but to thrive; a time to rethink how we communicate and do
business with others. I recently heard a speaker (virtually of course) who told the story of an
artist who decided to explode her old garden shed, she then repurposed and rethought the uses of the shattered parts. Covid-19 is our shed and we now have the opportunity to repurpose, rethink and reframe how we run our businesses and lives. Innovation is key to our continued success.

Click here for an overview of ways to shop the VBF https://youtu.be/u8XXXXXXG0s

Sheryl, we thank you for this interesting interview, wish you and your team at the ABAA
much success with the fair and hope to see you all in person again very soon.

"SERENDIPITY AWAITS" - The Boston Virtual Book Fair opens on 12th November 2020 and can be accessed here: BOSTON VIRTUAL BOOK FAIR


Sheryl Jaeger, with her partner Ralph Gallo, established Eclectibles – Fine and Unusual
Ephemera
in 1989. The business became a full-time endeavor for Sheryl in 1996. Her personal and professional mission is The Promotion and Preservation of Ephemera leading her to service on the boards of the ABAA and the Ephemera Society of America. Sheryl is currently the ABAA Vice President. She is also a member of the Appraisers Association of American and the American Antiquarian Society. As the name implies Eclectibles offerings are varied with a focus on childhood ephemera, social history, women’s history, collections and archives and just about anything that presents a new view of a story, lends a new prospective or serves as primary source material. Prior to joining the trade, she was an independent Management Consultant in operational effectiveness.

For full contact details, please visit this link.

Interview: Angelika Elstner, ILAB