Bibliophemera

Gabe Konrad, of Bay Leaf Books in Sand Lake, Michigan, has informed me of a new Web site he's launched devoted to bookseller labels. He writes, "I wanted a place where I could post interesting label news and keep a current list of links." Have a look at www.booksellerlabels.com and see if you agree with me that he's off to a fine start. I'll certainly be checking in regularly to see what's new. He has some great examples and helpful information on this diminutive paper collectible. From time to time, I feature a few bookseller labels on this blog--those tiny, stamp-sized stickers that advertise a bookseller's business. You usually find them in older books affixed to a lower corner of either the front or rear endpaper. Some examples from my small collection are shown below. Here's a few other collections that I've referenced before, which you'll also find on Konrad's site: Seven Roads Gallery of Book Trade Labels and the massive collectio...

My last post was about a Philadelphia bookseller, John Penington & Son , whose 1875 trade card I had recently acquired. A few months ago, I had purchased a copy of Forty Years Among the Old Booksellers of Philadelphia with Biographical and Bibliographical Remarks , by W. Brotherhead (published by A.P. Brotherhead, Philadelphia, 1891). Affixed to the book's endpapers, I found a couple of paper items I like to feature here occasionally--a bookplate and a bookseller's ticket, or label. Inside the book's front cover (front pastedown), I see this book formerly was a volume in the private library of H.S. Pickering, so stated by his straightforward, no-frills bookplate: Of H.S. Pickering and books or libraries there is nothing to be found through repeated searches. There was a man by that name who wrote a book about covalent something or other, but I doubt that was my Pickering with the bookplate. My Pickering would be more appropriate as a relation to the Pickering ...

More bookseller labels, courtesy of Reinhard Öhlberger , of Vienna, Austria. If anyone has duplicates to trade, Mr. Öhlberger would certainly be interested in hearing from you. Of particular interest would be labels from North America and Scandinavia (especially Finland), but anywhere in the world would be considered. Enjoy these little paper gems of bookseller history:

I'm in Birmingham today for the Alabama IndyCar Grand Prix at the Barber Motorsports Park . This post is slightly modified from a piece I wrote two years ago and seemed worth repeating for today's event. I found this book shop label (also known as a ticket ) in a 1969 volume of Autocourse . The bookseller was Classic Motorbooks in Minneapolis. I thought about removing it, but I let it go. The book quickly sold and I regretted not saving the label. But I did take a picture of it before the book was shipped overseas. I was curious to see if the bookshop still existed; after all, it's been nearly 40 years since that label was affixed inside the rear cover. To my surprise, it does exist, albeit in a dramatically altered state from its humble beginnings in 1965 in a Minneapolis garage. Through expansion, publishing, name changes, and changes of ownership and business focus, Classic Motorbooks morphed into MBI Publishing and its three imprints: Motorbooks, Voyageur Press, and Zen...

You won't need a ticket to get into the American Bookbinders Museum Web site, but you will find plenty of tickets once you are there. A bookbinder's ticket is actually a small, printed label that advertises the bookbinder's business and craftsmanship in the work the reader is holding. The example above is from a Dutch collector who recently emailed me some scanned samples, which I featured in a recent post here . The bookbinder is identified by name and, most always, location, and there may be additional information about the business. This information may be presented with accompanying decorative graphics or in just a plain vanilla style. The label, or ticket (the two terms are often used interchangeably), is typically affixed to one of the endpapers. I tend to find more on the rear endpaper, but the front endpaper is certainly no stranger to these tiny collectibles. These are typically found in older books (say mid-twentieth century and earlier) when the practice of affi...