Let’s begin by saying that we purchased this believing it was by Szyk—and even a careful look would not indicate otherwise. We bought this in the days before the easy access to information that the internet now affords us. Buying original material like this, then, was fraught with risk. Learning that this and other forgeries of works by Polish artists were created by a group of artists in concentration camps for a fascist regime that had an unusually strong interest in art certainly made it compelling—especially given how tirelessly Szyk worked to create anti-fascist artwork for American publications during the war.

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This set has so much going for it: a very deluxe edition with extra plates printed on silk, in a beautiful and aesthetically appropriate binding, and with a discreet, well-executed fore-edge painting. The regular edition is common in institutions, so this copy is, unfortunately, considered “gilding the lily.” That it perfectly embodies fin-de-siècle excess, when all the lilies were gilded, makes perfect sense, and besides, it is a truly handsome set.

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Looking back at this text from the vantage point of the early 21st century, it seems pretty remarkable that this exercise in typography and linguistics would have been in such demand that someone created a pirated edition. Because of that demand, of course, this book suffers from the same conundrum as the Nuremberg Chronicle in that it is a very common rare book. How many copies still retain their original bindings is not known, however. Did we mention there are nineteen Native American languages represented here?



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One theme that applies to a number of items on this list could be called “the peril of the overly specific.” The present book presents an excellent example of this—an array of details from stained glass church window designs printed in brilliant chromolithography. With only four recorded copies—two in the U.S.— it’s legitimately rare. To complete the trifecta, it’s in immaculate condition. To quote Gershwin, who could ask for anything more?

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Booksellers are suckers for a juicy story. Combine that with a host of accomplished artwork, and it doesn’t matter what the subject is. Well, perhaps it does, in the case of this suite of World War II logbooks. “Doc” Snyder really comes to life in these pages—from an inventory of his tattoos to his expressions of dismay and resolve following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and to his first-hand battle accounts. You find yourself rooting for him, sending up a silent cheer when you reach his entry dated Sept 27, 1943, which simply reads: “Omaha, Chicago, Richmond, Cincinnati. Dayton, and Home!

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While this family trip to the circus fun house is not outside our comfort zone, it illustrates what happens when buying too narrowly. This is a legitimately rare book—held in only two institutional collections. Unfortunately, one of them was the customer we had in mind for this book, and for reasons unknown to us, that holding was not reported to OCLC. We retain a fairly large soft spot for unusual illustrations— especially from this fertile period in German children’s books.

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Many objects relating to the act of writing have come our way over the years—from Roycroft desk accessories, to this delightful keepsake box. Each one shed a little light on daily life during a particular era. They speak to a time when things were crafted slowly, by hand, and with care. These are things that were intended to not only hold materials worth keeping, but were themselves worth keeping...

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Legend has it that during the Great Depression, A.S.W. Rosenbach retreated to his book-lined rooms in Philadelphia with ample amounts of the whiskey that eventually destroyed his liver and rode out the downturn. Evidently, Dr. Rosenbach had a customer who either collected Shakespeare, or extra-illustrated books, and likely had this book dressed up for presentation. The pen-and-ink embellishments are quite accomplished; the binding sumptuous.

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Circling back to the notion that booksellers love a story—we like them even when the whole story is not explicitly stated. Such is the case with this pair of mid-nineteenth century Pennsylvania lovers. All we know is that the man could not “stop long this time,” so we infer that distance played a part in this romance. The drawing stands as a charming folk art equivalent of a photo booth image.

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When was the last time you thought about Ibsen? We have to admit that we seldom find the Norwegian playwright peopling our thoughts these days. However, we also confess that there is something subversively satisfying about this image, which shows the diminutive Ibsen about to get his comeuppance from his beleaguered female protagonists.

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Micrographic art is cool. The late, great, magician Ricky Jay collected it, and put a considerable portion of his collection on display at The Met a year or two before his death. While we bought these well before that exhibit went up, it seems we arrived a little late to Ricky Jay’s party. A quick scan of the current market shows that this remains the only example for sale as of this writing.

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In our experience, certain texts sell themselves. This is especially true of what could be called national literature— The Canterbury Tales in England, for instance; or Moby-Dick in the U.S. Thus it is with Cervantes’s novel. We’ve always managed to sell any edition of Quixote— whether printed by Ibarra, or the edition of Cervantes’s work we once had printed on cork. We remember feeling a slight thrill when I read about the exhibit of the Coypel tapestries at The Frick in 2015, as we figured that would spark interest in our copy of this work. This, again, falls under the “peril of the overly specific” category: a textless visual interpretation of scenes from Don Quixote with the mise-en-scene shifted to France, and geared toward a definite Baroque sensibility. If only we had some tapestries...

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Further to the notion that booksellers love stories, they become even more irresistible if they contain tales of a young hellion redeemed through hard work and heroic behavior. Add to that the element of seafaring, and gear it toward a youthful audience, and you can just take our money. Such was the case when we spotted this in a colleague’s booth in California some years ago. The artwork has a certain charm; the story is well-told; and someone cared enough to preserve it.

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Given the structure and intended use of this biscuit tin lid sample book, we frankly can’t imagine there are many intact examples left in the world. A quick scan of OCLC confirms that not one exists in an institutional collection. In revisiting this, it’s easy to see why we fell for this item—the blending of aesthetic styles, the bright gem-like colors, the very idea that once upon a time, there was such a thing as a biscuit tin lid salesman who traveled to bakeries around France in the first half of the twentieth century.

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Fun fact: there is but a single record in OCLC for an institutional holding of this massive undertaking. It has also only come up at auction a half dozen times in the last decade. At the time we purchased this, there were no copies in commerce, either. So, where are the other 1193 copies? Two have since turned up on the market, both of which are in Italy—one much more expensive than ours; the other slightly less—but then, shipping costs for this bit of furniture will quickly eat up that savings.

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Booksellers never seem to learn their lesson about erotica. The next time you find yourself walking around a book fair, make a note of how many dealers’ booths contain such material. That this somewhat less explicit, but very ephemeral example combined movable/optical elements deepened the appeal for us.

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Our purchase of this decidedly non-ephemeral item at the Ephemera Society’s annual fair in Greenwich, Connecticut elicited quite a bit of buzz from the dealers who were set up near the dealer who sold this to us. It’s not every day that one encounters a chess set that combines an evolutionary theme with a 1960s Japanese monster movie vibe. If only Harrison Ford, a carpenter before he was a movie star, had carved it while waiting to get his Star Wars callback...

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One of the perils of being deeply interested in printing processes is that something like this unrecorded example of anastatic printing will appear in a dealer catalogue and will elicit a moment of excitement. This is what we call “going with one’s gut”—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t...yet...

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Pros: Depression-era original art by a woman WPA artist from the Midwest. Cons: the presence of a couple of rather racist stereotypes in a panoply of characters depicted for an unknown puppet show. Ultimately, you either like puppets, or you don’t. Our office is evenly divided on that last point. Perhaps you like puppets—in which case, have we got some artwork for you...

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One area where we’ve experienced some growth in terms of buying is in archival process material—specifically where it relates to the book arts. This likely factored into the decision-making process here—a focused group of designs for useful objects whose purpose was to be invisible in the service of displaying other, more precious objects. There was something noble and poetic about all this. That there was a tangential link to Vernon Carroll Porter sweetened the pot.

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Books-into-film was one of those robust areas of modern book-collecting that seemed immune to the passage of time. This group of Danish promotional pamphlets has great graphic appeal; it represents an example of the playbill convention adapted for cinema—a convention that has sadly fallen away. Several of these have ink dates written on the upper cover, indicating when the previous owner saw that film for the first time.

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