cosmopolis

Another bookseller heard from

Dear David, I'm disappointed that I still haven't received payment for ANGLE OF REPOSE (invoice of July 26 attached).  I gladly gave you your customary discount.  (Though less than you implied you wanted, 10% is my usual trade discount on books not selected in person at either of my premises.)  Moreover, as an additional courtesy (one I've extended to only three other people over the years), I didn't charge you postage but wrapped the book myself and brought it down to Serendipity, where I left it for you, just as you'd asked.  True, you didn't pick it up until July 31, when I saw you there.  But today is September 9.  The overwhelming majority of my private customers, dealers as well as collectors, pay on receipt.  Some actually pay in advance (I myself pay either in advance or upon receipt), though a few take full advantage of the traditional terms of the trade – i.e., 30 days from the arrival of the book in the buyer's hands to the arrival of payment in the seller's – which is, of course, completely acceptable.  But in my almost two decades as an independent antiquarian bookseller, you are only the second private customer, dealer or otherwise (institutional libraries, as you know, traditionally receive special billing), to take MORE than 30 days.  I guess I've been very lucky.  Please send your check as soon as possible.  Best wishes, Burton

The Old Days

"I've been in the business for over 70 years and fancy I know a thing or two about it. Nowadays there are far too many amateurs around, and bookshops have deteriorated everywhere. In fact, I can only think of about 20 good bookshops left in this country." 

-- English bookseller Charles Traylen, shortly before he died in 2002 at age 96

Traylen was a proud member of the auction ring that got books cheap for decades in a way later ruled to be illegal. He fought enthusiastically against the buyer's premium at the auction houses, believed bookselling was a profession, thought you should buy only the best copy and believed it much smarter when buying a large lot to get rid of the dross first and then keep the good stuff -- the reverse of most booksellers. ABE would have horrified him, eBay made him sick.

Proof Traylen was right about condition arrives in the failure of one of the few known copies of the John Lane edition of Nabokov's Camera Obscura to find a buyer at auction. It was estimated at 9,000 to 12,000 pounds. One look at the copy tells why: it was rather rough, with a new jacket spine reducing the price to a "cheap edition." Reportedly, this is the third attempt to sell it this decade, at ever-lower prices.

"very bizarre, at times grotesque"

The Georgia bookseller who inadvertently bought a large number of hollowed-out books filled with freaky Polaroid porn says he will eventually auction them. If the widow who sold him the books hears about it, she is in for a big surprise. The only thing I ever find in old books is airplane tickets used as bookmarks.