Fantastic Frontispiece 1: "Wings" (1931)

This is the first in a new section I am calling "Fantastic Frontispiece."  As I described in my discussion of the parts of a book, a frontispiece is a decorative image that is on the facing page from the title page.  These can be beautiful additions to high-quality books and are worth looking for in the books you purchase.

This frontispiece is from a book entitled Wings by W.E. Johns, a collection of short stories published in 1931.

Share your favorite frontispieces and I'll post them up here.

Parts of a Book Part II: Inside

Previously, I featured a post that discussed the external parts of a book, today-as the next installment of our three part series-I wish to open the covers and explore the internal divisions of books.  The goal here is to provide you with the knowledge and, especially, vocabulary necessary to be able to evaluate, appropriately price and sell your books.

For this exploration of the interior architecture of books, I will start inside the front cover and work my way to the back.

Depending on the book, the first pages may in fact be blank.  These pages are called the gathers and are a product of the mechanical method in which books are created, which we will get to in our next segment.  Basically, there must be an equal number of pages in each subsection of the book when it is bound and if there are not, the machines put a few extra pages in the front to balance, hence the gathers.  Sometimes the gathers are at the end of the book, depending on the publisher.

Working in from the gathers, one next encounters the title page.  Here you'll find the full title of the work, the author, publisher and year.  This is an immensely important page for us as is the next page, the edition notice (or copyright page), which contains the ISBN number and the edition number (click for my posts on how to read ISBNs and how to identify first editions).  With these two pages, we have information on: the title, who wrote the book, when it was first published, what edition this copy is, who published it, where and what the ISBN is.

There are two minor variations on this theme: a "half title page" and a "frontispiece."  The half title contains nothing more than the main title (so no subtitles); the frontispiece is a decorative image which is on a page facing the title page, these are a bit old-fashioned and were often beautiful wood-cut prints.  A nice frontispiece can add value to a book.

When looking to see if a book has been signed by the author, check out the title page or the half title.

After these technical pages, we begin to come to more content-oriented pieces: the acknowledgement, the dedication, the table of contents, forwards, prefaces, introductions and prologues.  Of course, not all books have all of these things, unlike the title page and edition notice, which are standard for all commercially published books.  Together all of these elements, from the title page to the final prologue constitute the part of the book known as the Front Matter.

This is followed by the main body of the book, which is known as the Content Matter.  It is a bit ironic that while books are written for their content matter, it is often what is contained in the external condition of the book and in the information of the front matter that determines the value.  A terribly written text can become valuable simply because of who wrote it, when they wrote it or what condition it is in.  When evaluating books, however, I simply note what the contents are (if the book is well known or is in a subject that I believe sells well) and then move on.

Finally, we come to the last element of the interior of the book, the End Matter.  This includes epilogues, afterwords, glossaries, postscripts, appendices, the index and the bibliography.  This material influences price far less than either of the other two, in fact it can be missing altogether and still be a valuable book.  The only tiny footnote to this is that if you have a book that you believe may be valuable as an academic text, the absence of a good index and bibliography basically means that its value is limited to scholars, was put together shabbily or simply isn't a serious book.

This concludes our discussion of the interior geography of books, I hope it helps you not only to better evaluate the price of a book, but also to appreciate their craftsmanship.

Next Post: Part III- How Books are Made.

Report from the Syracuse Hazard Branch Library Sale

While sifting through Craigslist's Books and Magazines section last night I ran into an ad "$1 bag book sale tomorrow" at the Hazard Branch Library here in Syracuse.  While the Hazard isn't in my usual hunting range, it is close enough to warrant the trip.  The sale started at 9 and I got there a bit after 10 (what can I say... I like to sleep late on Saturdays).

The Hazard Branch is a pleasant, open space, on the big side for Syracuse's branch libraries.  Near Syracuse's beautiful Polish Sacred Heart Basilica, it obviously serves the large European ethnic communities in the neighborhood, with books in Polish, Ukrainian, and German as well as a Irish newspapers for the community based out of the Tipp Hill neighborhood.  These are old neighborhoods, high up on the city's western hills with ethnic communities going back over a century--it was originally popular with Catholic workers who were not welcome in the old city core (today's Downtown).  On my way home, I stopped by Harrison's Bakery which is just down the road from the library; the Bakery itself was worth the trip and I highly recommend a visit.

The book sale itself was decent, with around a dozen tables or racks sorted into fiction, nonfiction, mass market paperback, children's and non-English books (the had both Polish and German books).  There were only a handful of used library books, which is good as they a lower resale value.  Overall, the pickings were not fantastic, I found about $12 worth of resale textbooks (mostly cheap paperbacks bought for less than $0.50).  The fact that it was a bag sale freed me from having to be highly constrained by cost calculations, which was pleasant.

The one interesting find was a first edition of Aldou's Huxley's "Ape and Essence."  Huxley (the author of "Brave New World") wrote this dystopian novel in 1948.  The book had a bit of water damage, but was still well worth the price of a $1 bag sale.  I posted it up on ebay this afternoon, setting a beginning price of $4 and a buy it now of $6.50 ($3.50 shipping).  If the book wasn't 1st edition, the lack of dust jacket and the water damage (which is only to the cover) would make it pretty worthless, so I am hoping that the low price will bring in buyers who are not necessarily collectors but interested in the content as well.

Parts of a Book Part 1: The Outside

A book dealer needs to understand not only the ways in which the contents of a book influences its price, but also how the role of a book's physical state affects its value.  We must be able to accurately judge and describe the books we sell and in order to do this we must have a familiarity with the lingo regarding the parts of the book and a basic understanding how books are put together.

This is a rather large topic, so I will divide it into three parts: this first one dedicated to the surface of the book--the covers and edges.  The second will focus on the internal divisions of a book and the final segment will detail how books are created.

Starting on the left-hand picture, the inside of the front cover, we see a single sheet of paper, the endsheet, often decorative and of heavier stock than the rest of the book.  One half of the endsheet is glued to the cover forming the pastedown, the other half is the flyleaf, which is intentionally left blank.  At this point, we can also see the book's edges.  The long edge that runs down the page is called the fore edge, and the bottom is called the tail and the top is called the head.  The edges are sometimes gilded or colored, a process where they are coated in a material like gold which serves not only to beautify the book but also to protect its pages.

Turning to the right-hand picture, we see the outside of the book.  This leatherbound book is traditional in its structure and not all books will have the same elements.  The most important parts here are the covers, which protect the front and back of the book, and the spine, which protects the book's bindings.  Connecting the covers to the spine is a narrow flexible area called the hinge (or the joint) which allows the cover to open.  At the top, where the binding meets the head, there is sometimes a protective piece of cloth called the headband.  Along the spine there are sometimes ridges called raised bands, which used to have a function in covering the cords that bound a book together but today are decorative.

As we examine a book for purchase or sale, we need to be fluent in these terms so that we can give a good description of the text.  In particular we need to see that the spine is straight and uncreased or warped, and that the edges are not worn.

Next Post: The internal parts of a book.

Selling other stuff #2: Silver Coins and Bullion

In the ongoing hunt for books, you will inevitably come across other, non-book materials that might be worth your while to pick up.  Some of these are quite obvious overlaps, such as CDs, DVDs, comics and posters, but one you might not think of is silver.  I have found silver for sale in antique shops, flea markets and even, on one occasion, a pet groomers/trading card shop.  If you have a good, rough estimate on the current value of silver, you can sometimes pick up good deals that are excellent long term investments.

The primary advantages to purchasing silver are the fact that it has over the decades slowly increased in price.  It is thus safe and easily traded most anywhere.  The second is that it can be purchased in small dollar values that fit any budget.

There are two types of silver easily available: bullion and coins.  Bullion is the term for privately produced silver rounds (they look like coins but can't be called them for legal purposes) and bars.  Coins are produced by governments and include both fancy, large ones produced by modern mints and the smaller dimes, quarters, 1/2 and 1 dollars minted before 1965, when the US coinage still operated on a precious metal basis.  These are some of the easiest since they are universally recognized and have a set, easily compared weight (so a quarter has 2.5 times as much silver as a dime and a dollar has 4 times the silver of the quarter).

So, how to know what a fair price is?  Start off by checking the "spot price" for silver, either in your newspaper or on a site like CNN Money.  This will give you the price of a Troy Ounce, or $1.40 face value of pre-1965 coinage.  I have constructed a spreadsheet on OpenOffice Calc (you can use the same formulas in Microsoft Excel) where I can put in the bullion price (cell C4) and it automatically tells me the spot prices for various other values as well as what they would cost with markups of 10%, 20%, 30% and 50%.  Smart sellers always have a markup, so don't expect to get spot price most of the time.

Click for larger image

I have included the needed formulas for reproducing the spreadsheet on your home computer in red.  Column A is simply written in, as have cells B4 and B5.  The leftmost formula [ =(B5/4) ] is to calculate 25% of $1.00's face value of coinage.  Other cells would divide B5 by other rations (such as B5/10 for B9 which is $0.10 face value).  In Column C, C4 is written in as it's the bullion price, the remainder of the column is based upon a calculation [ =(C4*B5) ] this is a simple one to convert, for the next row it would be =C4*B6, and the next one =C4*B7.  The remainder of the chart helps you estimate the current markup.  The only alteration is that in Row 3 it reads =SUM(C3/10;C3) and in Row 2 its =SUM(C2/10;C2).  For other columns the alteration is in the divisor.  So for 20% the formula is =SUM(C4/5;C4) and for 30% its =SUM(C4/3;C4) [NOTE: Yes I know it's really 33%, I am rounding] and for 50% its =SUM(C4/2;C4).

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

Identifying First Edition Used Books

When I started this business, one of the few things I "knew" was that first edition books were the most valuable.  So, I looked through piles of books around my house to find the first editions for sale... to my surprise I soon realized that it is sometimes a challenge to identify a first edition, much less sell it.

The art of identifying first editions is a relatively complicated one, in part due to variations between publishers.  Alibris publishes a full guide to the issue as does Bookseller World and you might consider picking up a copy of A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions by Bill McBride, but here are some hints to get you started:

• Start by looking at the dust jacket or wherever the price is normally located.  If there isn't a price tag, chances are it's a Book Club Edition and is probably worthless.  The dust jacket may even be labeled "Book Club Edition"

• Go to the Copyright page.  Look for the words "First Edition" or "First Printing" or look for a string of numbers for instance these from my copy of Attila the Hun by John Man:

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

If the number "1" is the first in the sequence, it's a first edition.  If not, even if it says "First Edition 3 5 7....", then it's not a first edition.  Some publishers use letters instead and "A" replaces "1."  The one exception is Random House, which does write "First Edition 3 5 7...." for its first edition.  Confused yet? 

• When the numbers are missing, editions are labeled as such.  However, if the copyright says something like "First Penguin Edition 2009" and then below the title the word "2010," it is not the first edition.  Basically, if there are ANY dates later than the first edition date on the page, it's not a first.
• As the book rises in rarity, be more wary of fake dust jackets.  This issue is handled well on artbusiness.com, and I suggest you take a look there before buying a 1st edition Great Gatsby or Color Purple, but for the moment it pays to double check dust jacket information with the copyright page for rarer books.

Happy Hunting!

April 23: World Book Day (Dia Mundial Del Libro)

Happy World Book Day 2010!

This "holiday" is recognized by UNESCO as "World Book and Copyright Day," but let's face it... celebrating copyright is pretty boring (not to mention a far more complicated issue than can be represented in a holiday), while books are one of humanity's finest collective creations.

While this holiday is not well known in the US, it is more popular in Europe, especially in the Catalan Countries where it grew out of the festival of St. Jordi (or "George" as he is better known in English).  In Spain, it is also the date of the awarding of the annual Cervantes Prize [Spanish] by the King of Spain; it is the most prestigious prize in the Spanish language.

I first encountered the festival in 2004, I spent a semester living in Spain and I had the great pleasure of being in Catalonia on April 23rd.  I was charmed by the basic thrust of the holiday: people give each other a book or a flower.  This is not just between parents and children or spouses, but between all sorts of people who respect each other: friends, teachers and students, colleagues, etc.

The day is also relevant in the wider book world as the birthdays of: Miguel Cervantes (author of Don Quixote), William Shakespeare (the Bard of the English Language) and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (early historian and chronicler of Latin America). UNESCO notes that "23 April is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo."

UNESCO has declared the official theme of this year's festival as: "Translation" (you can read their formal statement here).

Today I hope to enjoy books by writing one and writing about others.  I've been stalled in my writing process for several weeks now and, after a few days off, am jumping back into it.  Do you celebrate World Book Day?  If so, what do you plan to do?