Report from a Beantown Book & Antiques Fair

Last weekend we had a booth at the Boston Antiquarian Book &
Ephemera Fair which was part of Boston Antiques weekend. There were
somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 booths – about 1/3 books and the rest
antiques and textiles. It was held at the Seaport World Trade Center
which is a lovely venue in a somewhat forgotten part of town (though next
door to the brand new, excitingly cantilevered, Institute of Contemporary Art) in Southie.

It’s funny that a recent post here was about optimism, because no where is the typical
bookseller’s lack of optimism more evident than at a book fair – what’s
even funnier (funny odd, not funny ha ha) is that we brought a first
edition of that very Helen Keller Optimism book pictured in the
aforementioned post. It didn’t sell (just $20! Ex-library though).

So between the complaints and justifications about why no
one was buying books (which I must admit I participate in, although often
internally) – weather’s too good, weather’s too bad, it’s the start of bar
mitzvah season, dancing with the stars, etc. (there was a group of antique
booths stuffed into the back of the book section – they probably signed up
late – and after a couple hours on day one, they must have tromped up to
the front to complain about being forgotten because every hour for the
nest day and a half there was an announcement to “not forget about the
antique section at the back corner of the book dealers”. Their reasons at
least were simple – we got stuck at the ass end of the book section or
else we’d be selling like mad. ) – here’s what went down:

Most of the fancy Boston dealers showed up, Peter Stern, Bromer who was
flogging their great book on miniatures (and who had a great Ubu Roi in a fine binding replete
with robots on the front and back cover with visible internal gears. I
can’t seem to find a picture of it though), Brattle, The Boston Book Co. –
and a fine array of print and book dealers looking for that cross over
business with the antiques. These latter probably fared the best. We’ve
only done a couple of these, but the prices seemed to run the gamut – good
prices on general stock in the $10-$75 range, but also a wide variety of
marked up merchandise that I would have thought was too common to bring
along. The high end was exciting, though as often happens, it can be a
little duplicative. I think I saw at least four first editions of
Huckleberry Finn in the original decorative cloth. As always, this has to
make buyers wonder if it’s worth dropping 8k on a book that everyone
apparently has.

Buying seemed to concentrate on prints, ephemera (lots of customers
wandering about asking “journals, registers, diaries?” and then moving
on), and a fairly brisk business in children’s books and postcards. The
rest of us were forced to slog on hoping for a few good sales to fill the
gaps (we ended up doing fine – no champagne and strawberries afterwards,
but it turned out – a few prints, a lovely pirated Fanny Hill with filthy
illustrations, an Adrienne Rich first). Partly because it was a mixed
show, and partly the changing times, there was a very high browser to
buyer ratio. Since we’ve only just started doing shows, this may be
normal, but it can be intensely frustrating to have hordes of people
passing through the booth without selling anything. Of course, since
there were two of us at the fair, I wandered through dozens and dozens of
booths and only came away with a copy of Make Way for Ducklings for my
daughter, so I’m part of that particular problem.

What was interesting was what people picked up when they came into the
booth – it wasn’t the old books, I’m pretty sure no one even touched a
book printed before 1800, and our first edition of New Experiments Upon
Vipers which was on display, got no love at all.

Despite having the world’s greatest frontispiece, there was no interest in
this book

What seemed to pique people’s interest were the prints, the illustrated
books, and the art and architecture. What they passed over was probably
more interesting – little to no interest in: a pile of Limited Editions
Clubs that we brought (most in pristine condition – many even retaining
the glassine wrappers. This might have been part of the problem – though
the wrappers make the book rarer, they also tend to be intensely ugly),
noir pulps with great cover art, 19th century almanacs, Modern Firsts (I’m
not a big fan, but I felt compelled to at least make a token effort to
bring some. Interesting that the only one anyone even touched was poetry
– we even had a cheap Ishmael Reed novel, signed, and I think he’s the
bomb) and anything in a foreign language, no matter how fantastic I might
have thought them.

I draw no conclusions and if you don’t do book fairs, I can neither
recommend them, nor warn you off. However, in the next week we sold two
books that we’d taken to the fair – an early 20th Century illustrated book
in Spanish, and a first American edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne.
Both for good money, and both, I have no doubt, from filling them with
bookseller mojo in packing them, shelving them, looking at them fondly,
etc.. So, there’s that.

Post by: Tom Nealon

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