Reinhard Öhlberger's HUGE collection of bookseller labels

As the old saying goes, big things come in small packages. The converse of that idiom might have something to do with small things comprising something much larger. That is something Reinhard Öhlberger knows well.

Reinhard Öhlberger, of Vienna, Austria (Wien, Österreich), has what arguably is the largest collection of its kind. He collects bookseller labels--those small stamp-like pieces of paper booksellers used to paste onto the front or rear endpapers of a book to advertise their business.

Mr. Öhlberger has, at last count, a little more than 24,000 of these labels (twenty-four thousand!), also referred to as tickets. Given that number, there probably isn't any argument as to his collection being the largest of its kind.

He chose about a thousand of these labels to feature in his book, Wenn am Buch der Händler klebt (Verlag Löcker, 1999). The image above is from Melzers Antiquarium (Luedenscheid, Germany) listing on abebooks.com.

Mr. Öhlberger contacted me several days ago to share some labels from a New York bookseller I had featured in an earlier post: Stechert-Hafner. Here are the labels, which demonstrate the various designs booksellers might employ through various stages of their existence:











Mr. Öhlberger's generosity didn't end here. I was pleasantly surprised to find more labels from around the world in my inbox a day or two later. I'll keep them separated from these and present them in my next post.

Danke, Reinhard!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to open a book

Image
Cataloging books the other day, I came across an 1890s multivolume set called Messages and Papers of the Presidents . Inside one of the volumes was a slip of printed paper with a bookbinder's message: How to Open a Book . The set was published by the Government Printing Office, so they are the likely source of this piece of paper, which reprints a passage from a publication titled, Modern Bookbinding . No other bibliographical detail is included for that title, but I have found a magazine from that era, Modern Bookbinding and Their Designers . No clue, though, as to the author of this particular piece. You might wonder (I did) why there would be a need for instructions to open a book. And if you put those instructions inside the book, doesn't that defeat the purpose somewhat? Opening a book is not as easy as you might think. At least if you read these instructions and try to follow them. Here's the gist of it in the opening run-on sentence: Hold the book with its back on a ...
Read more

A Bookaholic and Bibliophile in Ukraine

Image
A favorite piece in my Bibliophemera collection is an unused postcard illustrated by Ukrainian artists Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv. It features two interesting, whimsical creatures embracing each other while maintaining engagement with their books. Cat-like and bird-like, one in high heels and one barefoot, one with a long tail and prominent ears and one with tail feathers and no visible ears, both with beaks, and both with books. They can’t put their books down even in this intimate moment. Appropriately, they are labeled Bookaholic and Bibliophile. Might they even be an imaginative rendering of the artists themselves? Romana and Andriy were both born in Lviv, Ukraine in 1984 and continue to live and work there. The illustration on the postcard is a fitting depiction of their artistic lives where books and their illustrations comprise their passion for illustration, book design, and writing. Together, they started Art Studio Agrafka in Lviv where they have produced award-win...
Read more

F.F. Hansell & Bro., New Orleans 1900

Image
But for the winds of fate that first weekend in September of 1900, the building pictured above (and below), may have crumbled and the publishing & bookselling firm of F.F. Hansell in New Orleans would not have had produced the billhead above. What if the Great Storm of 1900 that leveled Galveston on September 8, 1900--America's worst natural disaster--had caught steering currents that took it north well before a Texas landfall? Hansell's billhead, dated September 28, 1900, owes its existence to the elements of nature, whatever they were at the time: High pressure over New Orleans pushing the storm west? A weak front approaching the Texas coast, pulling the storm toward it? Whatever, this storm could just as easily have veered north with a change in conditions and destroyed New Orleans. A lot of these storms that enter the Gulf of Mexico seem to make that right turn before striking the Texas coast. We (Houston-Galveston area) got lucky last summer with Gustav. Not so lucky w...
Read more