I just started working with rare books this past February for a public collection. I’ve been working entirely from home as a cataloguer.. it’s so odd to have books from the 1530’s in the room next to where I sleep! I’ve got so much to learn... thank you for your wisdom!
I very rarely if ever see dealers/collectors handling rare book with gloves on and this always surprised me. What is the edict when touching and reading rare books? Does this change when it's your own book vs. handling others books?
Curators and dealers and collectors generally don’t use gloves. Careful handle is sufficient. The gloves often cause more damage to pages because the loss of tactile feedback results in clumsy handling and torn pages.
Thanks for these videos, they really are helpful. Today, I was going through some books I'd bought a few years ago and because of this video, I was able to recognize one as a folio with deckled edges; before this, I'd have mistakenly believed that the book was beat up.
Adam...there were three books mentioned by Johnny Depp in the beginning of the Ninth Gate. The Don Quixote by Ibarra the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (which you also showed in a video) and one other...what was it?. I could not understand what he was saying.
I think he said Persiles as in Cervantes Les Trabajos Persiles. The folio he showed is probably larger than the quarto editon but if the 1617 editon it will set you back $10-15k. As Depp says “hang on to that one. It will never depreciate”
@@RareBookBuyer Oh I recently subscribed and watch your videos. I meant specifically a series on terms used in bookbinding, book collecting, maybe restoration, etc.. Thanks for the content!
while everybody loves rubrication, another holdover from the manuscript days is ruling. I have a few texts, some as late as the late 17th century, that have hand drawn ruling lines throughout the book to mimic the appearance of ruling of a medieval manuscript, but serve not real purpose in a printed books production. they are obviously drawn in after printing but before binding, so it makes me wonder who was often responsible for them... the printer or a 3rd party seller? do you encounter this very often?
Thanks for the comment. You rule ;) Seriously, I have seen ruling through the 18th century even and then on some later fine press books. Perhaps it had a purpose in mind - i.e. to more clearly mark and provide space for commentary on the text by the owner- but primarily I considered it a decorative flourish as private libraries and collectors wanted more distinguished copies. It is an excellent question and well worth studying more.
Adam can unexpected/important "binders waste" make a relatively inexpensive book more valuable? If so, can you give me an example of when this happened to you? Thanks!
@@RareBookBuyer in that case do you remove it from the book? Is that considered a no no in the hobby? Is it generally considered sacrilegious to dismantle a book to get "sum of parts" value vs. the entire book?
I guess that is unique to its case and a judgement call. In reality if something valuable and completely unrelated to the book itself can be safety removed it often gets removed for its own study and preservation.
