You Can Quote Me On That

THULIA: A TALE OF THE ANTARCTIC... more below


Got home from last week’s road trip in a fairly depleted state. I’d spent seven days banging around New England and I came back with a pocket full of traveling expenses, a head cold, and just a few interesting books to show for it.

Worse still, the Ten Pound Island Book Co. checkbook looked like it had been on a hunger strike and my receivables were spiraling down toward zero. As we try to impress upon the students at CABS (Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar) it’s all about cash flow at the end of the day. And my day was almost over. What to do?

Dan Gregory gave a wonderful presentation at the “New Tools” gathering in Dartmouth (see last week’s blog) about using his computer to create special subject catalogs. He searches his keywords and other fields, does a little judicious editing, adds the photos (already accompanying each book), runs the info through a template and prints it out on his company’s giant printer/binder. Presto! A “real” catalog tailored for a very few customers - perhaps those who like dogs or golf or southern authors. Or even just for one very special person. Wouldn’t it be a thrill to get a catalog made especially for you?

This is all well and good when you own 350,000 books, but what do you do when your stock in trade is 1/500th that amount?

The same thing.

Except my catalogs are shorter, each consisting a single item, and they are even more “special” since they only go to one person each – with photographs, but digitally. They are called “quotes” and they’re what little guys like me – specialist dealers – do instead of accumulating 350,000 books and hiring a prodigy like Dan Gregory to sell them. I suspect the act of “quoting” books has been around since 1455. In the old days we used carrier pigeons. Later, we graduated to postcards.

Kevin Johnson of Royal Books is a terrific bookseller. He makes the point that people actually like being contacted by dealers, especially if we’re offering material that stimulates their interest. He prefers telephone, but I’m too shy. I use email instead. Still, it amounts to the same thing – we put the book in the person’s hand and say, “Look at this! Isn’t it cool? I’m really excited about it.”

Yesterday I quoted a rare chart to a chart collector,
a yachting thing to a yachting guy, a photograph to a photograph guy, and closed the deal on a naval journal I’d recently quoted to a naval journal guy. All good. A week’s worth of receivables. While I’m waiting for those to come in I’ll go to the bank and deposit checks that came in from earlier quotes.

Yeah, I’m bragging. But bear with me. In order to do what Dan Gregory does, or even what I do, you need two things – books and customers. Everyone is always carrying on about the “books” part. How they bought this book, or how outrageous the price on that book was. But few people pay as much obsessive attention to the other term in the basic equation of our trade: books + customers = $$

I love my books, sure. But my most valuable possession, the most precious asset my company owns, is my mailing list. I’ve been working on it since 1976, and it has graduated from index cards in a shoe box to bits in a digital database.

That’s why I’m out there doing all those penny-ante book fairs, taking those seemingly pointless road trips, attending those seminars and book events, going to lunches I’d rather skip and taking care to medicate my inner sociopath every day. With even more attention and dedication than I put into my search for rare books, I’m looking for customers.

And I’m not just talking about rich guys in Upper East Side penthouses or special collections librarians high in their ivory towers. Through the years some of my best customers have been other dealers, and the only way I learned that was by hanging out with them - “You’ve got a customer for missionary imprints? No fooling! I think I have a book for you…”

OK, I’m climbing down off my pulpit now to show you something cool I learned from Terry Belanger two years ago at CABS.

We were all a little put off when he showed up with a hair dryer, especially since it was a device for which he apparently had little need. But boy, were we wrong! It turned out we all needed one, because a simple hair dryer is the safest and most effective method for removing things pasted into books.

For example, my otherwise lovely copy of Thulia was marred by kiddy stickers that some moron had allowed to be stuck onto the book’s front pastedown. Yukk!

A few minutes with Dr. Bellanger’s mighty hot air machine took care of that.


And a little cleanup removed every trace of old adhesive, leaving only the original acid burn from the binding glue.


Terry, you’re a Genius! (He actually has a MacArthur genius grant, but not for hair dryers.)

Palmer, J.C. THULIA: A TALE OF THE ANTARCTIC. NY. 1843. b/w frontis, plates, vignettes. 72 pp. One of the curiosities produced by the Wilkes Expedition, Thulia is, according to Rosove, “the earliest published Antarctic poetry.” It consists of two long narrative poems describing two years’ adventures aboard the schooners Flying Fish and Peacock, as they sailed Antarctic waters with the US Exploring Expedition. The poem is followed by notes and a prose summary of the ship’s adventures, which is the true meat of the book. According to the preface, the text is based on the journals Palmer kept when he served as surgeon aboard the Flying Fish. The twelve attractive engravings are by A.T. Agate, one of the artists on the Expedition, and there is even music written by James Dana, geologist on the Expedition. According to Rosove the Flying Fish achieved the highest latitude of any ship during the Expedition. He also notes that the book is “scarce.” Rosove 246. Haskell 186. Spence 890. (The book also receives extensive treatment in William E. Lenz’s “The Poetics of the Antarctic.”) This copy is bound in original plum cloth with the gilt image of the Flying Fish still bright on the cover. Owner’s signature on title page. Spine sunned, pastedowns and endpapers show typical darkening from binding materials. A very nice copy of a book that is usually found in poor condition. $2000

It's that day again - the one you've been waiting for all year

What is this image doing here? Read on, me hearties!


Busy week.


Learned that Sotheby’s Oct 5 photography auction is featuring one of the Diane Arbus images Bob discovered. He and I and my book Hubert’s Freaks all got plugs in the catalog description.

Headed off to western CT Monday afternoon hoping to buy a whaling log at an auction out there.

The log looked good to me when I examined it during the preview. It only covered four of the five years of the voyage, but it had nice whale stamps and some accounts kept by the captain throughout the voyage. The accounts made a difference. I figured I could sell it for $8500 - $9000.

Nobody on the floor was bidding. I ran my telephone competition to $5700 and thought I had it, when an Internet bid came in at $7000. I’d been ready to go $6500. The next bump over $7000 was $7250. Assuming my virtual competitor dropped out there, I’d be paying $8337.50 with the commission. My evening at the auction was over. The world is flat!

Went back to the Stephen King Motor Inn, just down the road. Waiting for Diane Arbus’s “Twins” to appear at the far end of the hallway. Full moon, too! Had a few drinks.

Puttering around western Connecticut next day, I found a book shop I’d never seen before. But it was closed. Guess I was too late.

Then up to Dartmouth for Wednesday’s “New Tools” unseminar, organized by John Waite and attended by a surprising forty people.

The morning started with a tour of Dartmouth’s Rauner Library and a marvelous talk by Special Collections librarian Jay Satterfield. Unlike many of his colleagues who think it is their job to protect their rare books from users, Jay’s whole mission is about how to turn people – Dartmouth students especially – on to rare books and the wealth of knowledge they can provide. Though it’s not his primary purpose, Jay and like-minded rare book librarians are a powerful force in creating and educating the next generation of book collectors and bibliophiles. Thanks, Jay!

Then an intense four hours with Dan Gregory of Between the Covers, who shared his hard-won skills (he manages an inventory of more than 350,000 books) in digital book photography and new computer aided ways to create traditional hard copy catalogs.

After a lunch break Joachim Koch of Books Tell You Why gave a succinct and organized power point presentation (via telephone) on how to employ existing Internet tools to measure the effectiveness of your company’s social media campaign, and how to use these metrics to produce better results.

I gave a talk about blogging and Ten Pound Island Book Co., which seemed to elicit quite a bit of laughter. This was probably a necessary relief after six hours of fire hose drinking. I only hope they were laughing with me. (Send me an email if you want a copy of my talk. You can decide for yourself.)

Then Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis Books with a looping, soaring, diving, lurching presentation on the various kinds of social media available to booksellers. He used the word “interesting” in almost every paragraph. And his talk was, well, interesting.

Luke Lozier of Bibliopolis closed out the day with a low key warning to make sure we’re aware of where we’re putting all these resources. He made a differentiation all of us probably know but don’t necessarily think about - between a self-owned e-commerce platform, and one owned by a giant company that is constantly mining information and is capable of making unilateral changes against our best interests. He also made the wry observation that the single dominant topic in this “New Tools” seminar was hard copy catalogs – about the oldest tool we have.

As we were leaving campus, a giant celebratory propane-fired balloon was rising above Dartmouth Green. (It was the students’ first day back at school.) Don Lindgren of Rabelais Books professed amazement that, after our seminar, there was any hot air left.

Thank you, John Waite. I hope you can package this presentation and take it on the road.

Boxborough Ephemera Show Saturday morning – just shopping. This event is run by the personable Flamingos, Tina and John. They get the job done, but sometimes it feels like they’re doing it by the numbers. After the high of the Dartmouth event the lack of energy at this show was palpable. Maybe we’ve all done too many. Made a few interesting purchases, mostly thanks to Matty Needle and others who are better scouts than I am, and who know what I buy.

Then up to Concord for the 31st New Hampshire Antiquarian Book Fair.

I could wax sentimental about the old days in the Highway Hotel, when the lines were long and the air was electric with possibilities. But why bother? This current iteration, held at the attractive Grappone Center, was flat – despite promoter Garry Austin’s best efforts. Yeah, I bought some stuff – even sold something. Yeah, dealers were scurrying around buying from one another as they have been since Hector was a pup. And yeah, I’d rather have a flat bookfair than no bookfair at all. He even fed us breakfast!

But golly, folks (and this is NOT a whine) I feel bad for Garry, who knocks himself out putting these things together.

According to him, only six dealers from the New Hampshire Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association participated in this fair.
It’s no surprise, given that lack of support, that Garry is pulling the plug on this show. He’s fulfilled his contractual obligation to the association and, he tells me, unless something changes, he won’t be promoting a 32nd edition of this fair.

But enough of this gloom and doom. Today is the 16th Annual International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yarr!

Banning, Kendall and Gustave Baumann (illustrator). PIRATES! OR, THE CRUISE OF THE BLACK REVENGE. Chi. 1916. b/w woodcuts. 4to. Unpaginated - title, 15 folded sheets, endsheet. Humorous play in verse about the adventures of the pirate Captain Hawkes and his crew. Designed by Lawrence Woodworth and published in Chicago for the Brothers of the Book. Wonderful wood engraved illustrations. Black paper cover with scarlet Pirates! on the cover. A Fine, fresh copy of the first edition, one in a limited edition of 525 copies. $350

Captain Nat’s Waistcoat

When you think of it, a printed book adheres to certain structural conventions, both as a physical object (lines read from left to right; ideas are developed in sequentially numbered pages, etc.) and in the abstract ways in which content depends on syntax for its expression, and genre is defined by rigid rules. Thus we know when we’re reading a novel as opposed to a textbook, and we can be delighted and surprised by the antics of Lawrence Sterne or David Foster Wallace, both of whom made careers of bending these rules ever so slightly. Descriptive bibliography aside, a book’s primary “meaning” – the information it delivers – is contained in the concepts it imparts rather than in the information contained in its physical being.

The point of this windy statement of the obvious is that although we get a great deal of information from printed books, the kinds of information we get are constrained by the structural conventions – both physical and intellectual – of that medium.

As I’ve said in earlier blogs, a manuscript – though it may follow many of the same conventions as a printed book – offers a different kind of information. Most importantly, a manuscript provides what TV shows always refer to as “forensic evidence” about the writer and about the environment in which the manuscript was produced. Whether we’re reading a one page letter or a Pepysian diary, the handwriting gives us clues about the author’s age, education, and fine motor skills. Furthermore it’s often possible to determine if the writing was done under duress, in adverse conditions, all at once or serially. The immediacy of a manuscript provides us with a kind of information that a printed book cannot provide.

These were my thoughts when I began looking over a little archive that I bought last week. It was a group of letters and documents from the family of Nathaniel Brown Palmer, the famous Antarctic explorer. Palmer was a daring and resourceful seal hunter from Stonington, Connecticut, and he pioneered the Antarctic seal fishery, which in turn provided valuable furs to be used as trade goods in the American China Trade. When sealing dried up in the 1840s Palmer, who was still in his prime, went into the merchant trade. Then in the 1850s he used all that he’d learned on the high seas to help design and develop the first American clipper ships.

Rugged as a bear, smart as a fox, with nearly superhuman powers of endurance, and possessed of more than a lifetime’s share of good luck, the guy had always been a hero of mine.
So I was pretty excited about this buy – not because of the papers, which mostly pertained to the career of Nat’s brother Alex, but because the lot contained a white polished cotton vest that had belonged to Nathaniel Brown Palmer. We know it was his because he wrote his name on the inside of the back strap in his distinctive signature, “NB Palmer.” How could I resist trying it on? Talk about walking a mile in someone’s shoes! I was slipping into the vest that had once warmed the heart of an American icon.
It didn’t fit.

By today’s standards I’m not a really huge guy – 5 feet 10 ½ inches, 190 pounds – just about a Cruiserweight. And I’d always pictured my hero Captain Nat as a heavyweight champeen. A burly terror who could keep the unruliest sailor in line. Just look at his picture. He’s a bear of a man.

Except he was a bear who stood barely 5 ½ feet tall and weighed in at about 140. My hero had the body of a fifteen year old.

The book never told me that.

Small archive pertaining to the family of Alexander and Nathaniel Brown Palmer, 1840s - 1880s. Approximately 30 billheads, letters and documents pertaining mostly to the business dealings of Alexander Palmer, but also containing a 3 page ALs from Nathaniel to his brother, and Nathaniel's polished cotton vest, signed by him on inside of back belt. The lot. $300

Please note that The New-England chapter of the ABAA is inviting members of the trade and all interested observers to a special one-day "unseminar" entitled "New Tools: Marketing Approaches, Platforms, & Technologies for Antiquarian Booksellers," to be held Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

They plan a full day of presentations, speakers, and open discussion. Since all the panelists are either active book dealers or people serving the larger community of antiquarian booksellers, they are calling "New Tools" an "Unseminar" to emphasize the participatory and "bottom-up" character of the event.

I’ll be one of the speakers there, and this is the information I provided the organizers about my presentation.

Title: Blog Your Way to a New You!

Precis: Gibson unpacks forces driving brand lift through contextual commerce and strategizes around ways to incentivize, and ultimately to monetize core values and best practices going forward

A Matter of Luck

Two interesting books on the War of 1812













Recently my blog has gotten a couple of inquiries (for me “a couple” is huge) from customers and colleagues (one inquiry each). These two kindly individuals wanted to know why I haven’t featured any books in my blog for the past month or so?

It’s flattering to know that at least two people read “Bookman’s Log” and that they are paying attention to the books the blog is supposedly advertising. But the sad truth is that I haven’t found anything worth writing about since I bought those excellent books at the Eldred auction last July 20th.

Bernice’s show at Searles Castle, while fun, yielded little more than a couple of prints. At the Vermont Book Fair I was reduced to purchasing an old trunk – a cool item, but hardly worth crowing about. The Summer Papermania Show in Hartford August 20th was good for nothing more than what we in the trade call “chowder” – relatively inexpensive books that, while interesting, will not yield big bucks. And, at the Baltimore Antique (and book) show last week, I bought one lovely thing from a colleague for $1750, but sold it to a retail customer the next day for $2750. Money in my pocket, but nothing to write about.

I’ve been stuck in a book drought of Saharan proportions.

And I’m taking it personally. All around me colleagues are buying good books in their fields. I keep firing blanks.

Over the past thirty-five years I’ve had many such periods. Sometimes, I swear, I can sense them coming, looming black holes accompanied by a sucking sound just at the edge of hearing. These periods of scarcity are no fun, but I’ve learned two things from them.

The first thing is that when you’re on a roll – when books are pouring in so fast you can’t keep up with them – you’ve got to pursue your good fortune with all the energy (and cash!) you can muster. I know, it sounds counter-intuitive. When you’re on a hot streak like that, why not just relax and let it happen? Because, Grasshopper, every hot streak comes to an end. And when the end arrives, the books stop. You’ve got to make hay while the sun shines. When things are going good you’ve got to have the focus and discipline to maintain a “pedal to the metal” attitude.

The second thing took me a little longer to realize. I’d always been told - and indeed it has always been an article of faith with me – that one makes one’s own luck. Diligence, perseverance, hard work, and unflagging attention are the true components of good fortune.

I still believe this, but over the decades something else has become apparent. No matter how hard you work, how much time you put in, or how much studying you’ve done, there is still a sense in which the outcome is beyond your control. You can go to places rare books have been seen before, you can study hard to know what a rare book might look like, you can train yourself to have the eyes that will pick that rare book out of a shelf of duds. But without luck, without fate putting that book there in the first place, you don’t stand a chance. You can’t find a book that’s not there.

No matter how prepared we might be, there are times when we just need a little luck,

While I’m sitting around waiting for my ship to come in (as it were), here are a couple of cool War of 1812 items. No, they aren't drought busters. The one on torpedo warfare was purchased last winter. It just came back from the binder. The Brannan book is a consignment item.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. THE ART OF WAR. IN SEVEN BOOKS. (with) HINTS RELATIVE TO TORPEDO WARFARE. BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Albany, NY. 1815. b/w plans, ills. (1-3), 4-349 pp. This is an interesting assemblage. It features the first printing of any work by Machiavelli in America. It is followed by a collection of biographical anecdotes relating to Machiavelli, and then by a 27 page work on cannon and underwater mines. Judging by the “Gentleman of New York” attribution, this ought to be a pirated version of Robert Fulton’s 1810 work “Torpedo Warfare” or his subsequent lecture, “Torpedos.” But it is neither of those. Instead, it is a crib of Fulton’s theories, disseminated “for the public good” in “times like the present” - (i.e., the ongoing War of 1812) by a writer who admits, for example, that he “possesses no accurate knowledge of the manner in which ignition is produced by a mixture of sulphur and steel dust; he has merely read in old books...” Rink, 2144 says the work is “generally attributed to Robert Fulton,” but I doubt it. That this treatise was published in the year of Fulton’s death may have something to do with the attempt to popularize his ideas. At any rate, an interesting puzzle. A clean copy, attractively bound in half calf over marbled boards, with spine label. $500

And…

Brannan, John. (Editor.) OFFICIAL LETTERS OF THE MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS OF THE UNITED STATES, DURING THE WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN IN THE YEARS 1812, 13, 14, & 15. WITH SOME ADDITIONAL LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS ELUCIDATING THE HISTORY OF THAT PERIOD. Washington City. 1823. 510 pp. A scarce early documentary source, publishing material relating to the antecedents of the war, as well as the actual battles. This copy is extra-illustrated with an engraved portrait of Lewis Cass, a document signed by War of 1812 hero Charles Morris, first lieutenant on the frigate Constitution and severely wounded leading a boarding party during her victorious action with HMS Guerriere, and a second document signed by Samuel Smith, major general and the commander of the successful defenses of Baltimore during the abortive British attempt to capture that city during the War of 1812. Howes B-722. Sabin 7411. Neeser 8002. Smith II 602. Moebs 59. Bound in 20th century quarter calf over marbled boards with a leather spine label. $800


Finally, just a reminder that The New England chapter of the ABAA will hold an “Unseminar” at Dartmouth College entitled “New Tools: Marketing Approaches, Platforms, & Technologies for Antiquarian Booksellers.” The “Unseminar” will last all day Wednesday September 14. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to hq@abaa.org. (Full details next week.)

and here's the hole where our bookstore used to be...