A Little Paper Ephemera Excursion

One of our fabulous finds.

After spending a nice day and night at a B&B in the Pocanos, we were perusing locations on the iphone where we could delve into more books, cooking pamphlets, postcards, etc like we’d bought for each other at antique malls as Christmas presents and we came across The Archive in Landsdale PA. We were

Necessary books, despite missing the half price sale.

lured by the promise of a huge attic sale of 1 dollar items, fill a bag for 5. Today we motored through Philly and hit the place if not running, at least walking quickly. And stopped in stride when we spotted a sign exclaiming a half price sale for all books–starting tomorrow. I cannot tell you how pissed I was over this new factor. Because we can’t be popping back and forth this distance and I wasn’t about to pay full price for something that would be drastically less expensive in 24 hours. Nonetheless I perused the children’s section, finding an Alice I didn’t own, a book about making dolls and dollhouses, and an obscure title illustrated by Maria Kirk. I did something I never do, I became pushy–I asked “could we pretend it’s tomorrow”? Naturally the answer was in the negative. I walked away.

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When Is It OK To Remove Illustration Plates From Books?

If it were up to me, probably never. No, that’s not true, I’ve taken some Anne Anderson Mother Goose illustrations and framed them. The book was missing half of the other plates, and  already damaged. So, if the book is damaged, is it OK to remove plates? And how damaged is damaged enough? And once … Read more

Read the ad pages in vintage books

Many older books, particularly from 1890-1930, include several pages of advertising at the rear. These ads are usually for other titles available from the publisher but sometimes they’re for products and services. A bookseller should always read through these pages because they often contain useful (or at least entertaining) information. You’ll get a sense of … Read more