Leather Bound Books, building a magnificent library

Leather Bound

For many generations now a personal library has been a sure mark of intellect, a curious mind and that of a person of character. The generation we now live in is so fast paced that many do not have the time to piece together a fine library. As a book dealer you may want to consider offering this service and if you do then you may want to begin stockpiling leather bound books of all types, all colors and all languages.


One easy route in compiling a nice collection of leather books is to look for Easton Press and The Franklin Library. These two companies offer most of the classics, titles that potential clients will be impressed by and they have a wonderful, bright appearance.  In addition to these well know classics you may also want to keep an eye open for French or Scandinavian titles as the price points may be much more attractive to resellers. While the titles or authors may not be well known, many of your clients will be more concerned about shape and color than the actual contents. One other note on why leather bound books are an attractive decorative element is the value. Like fine furniture and tapestries, the leather bound collection will increase in value over the years. The client gets beautiful decor without throwing his money away.

With all leather bound classics you can mix and match sets, color contrasts, groupings of great authors and or science tilted titles. The options are endless. As a dealer you aready know where to pick up great books, now you just need to keep an eye out for those that are leather bound. One place that you should add to your repetoire of places to pick up leather bound books is definetly eBay. I’ve had the good fortune of picking up many large lots of leather bound books and since the competition from other buyers is low (especially on larger lots) the price becomes even more attractive.

A sideline to consider is to make contacts with a few interior designers. They are often tasked with creating a library but do not know then ins and outs of sourcing leather bound items they way that you do. Consider selling the leather books by the yard. This way when you get a chance to pick up a large lot, the authors become less important. As long as the books are leather bound, clean and show no fraying on the edges then they have potential to be fodder for designer sales. Keep in mind that the clients that these designers may be working for have a much larger budget than your typical patron and because of this leather bound items can now be priced according to the budget of the project, forgetting altogether about their actual retail value.

As a bookshop owner you always need to be looking for ways to stretch your bottom line and with your knowledge and leverage in the book buying department you can easily put together a large collection of leather bound books to be used for your own customers or as mentioned earlier for selling to local designers.