By Ross Edmonds
In September 2022 viaLibri published (on its website) a ten-page article by Fabrizio Govi titled‘Online Bibliographical Tools for the Antiquarian Book Trade: Their History, Use and Impact’.1 It’s the impact on collectors that is the focus of this article and as Govi’s article is readily accessible online, I will not give an outline of its content. Rather, I wish to focus on a few contentious and/or misleading points that he makes.
Speaking about the ease of finding books now that we all have access to sites such as Abebooks, eBay and all the other sites which list rare books (ViaLibri searches them all), Govi poses the question:
If a large part of the pleasure and meaning of collecting in a certain field is the discovery of items that slowly, over time, gather to form a collection, what remains of that pleasure if 80% of that collection can be found in one hour sitting at your desk and is immediately available for purchase? (p 28; the pagination begins on p 27.)
Apart from the obvious point that Govi must have in mind a collection of books that are not rare at all, he is apparently under the misconception that all you need to do is find your desired book online and click ‘Buy’. This, of course, is absolute rubbish. Most of the time when I search online for the book I want, no copies of it are listed or, when they are, it is usually at an exorbitant price that I’m not silly enough to pay. So, unless a collector has more money than sense, the task is to find the books you desire at a reasonable price. While the internet gives you access to sellers in many countries and so has made this easier, it’s still a difficult and long-term project if the books you are collecting are really rare.
While the prices asked by upmarket dealers usually range from the expensive to something bordering on the criminally insane, there are a minority of dealers who usually offer books at reasonable prices: Some that come to mind are Peter Moore, who is based in the UK, Richard Neylon in Tasmania, Grants Bookshop and Peter Arnold, both in Melbourne, and Paul Feain, who runs Sydney Rare Book Auctions. I could name a few others.
Another important point which Govi misses is that it no longer matters where you live. Pre-internet you could order books from a dealer’s catalogue if they issued one, and if the book hadn’t already sold. However, most sales still took place over the counter and sometimes you could have a chat. (Yes, I miss those days, too.) If you didn’t live in a large city, however, you operated at a huge disadvantage. Now it doesn’t matter and, more than ever, as the saying goes, it’s not necessarily the early bird that gets the worm. Rather, it’s more likely to be the bird who recognises a worm when he or she sees it. In other words, extensive knowledge, more so now than ever, is a prerequisite to building a significant collection and not getting ‘ripped-off’ in the process. This is a crucial factor that Govi does not acknowledge. Nor does he seem to know that although sites such as ViaLibri make it much easier to find books, there are many books which are so rare that they seldom come on the market. And when they do, in my experience, it’s more likely to be at auction rather than being offered by a bookseller.
The notation in my book by Henry Dangar (see Biblionews 412, p 157), probably written by AH Spencer, reads: ‘This is one of the early Australian books which comes into the market about once in a generation.’ Inevitably, this means that when you look for a book on the net, ever hopeful that one will be there – at a fair price – rarely will you find a copy for sale. While Govi suggests you are likely to find 80% of what you want on the internet in one hour, my estimate is that I will get close to that target after about 40 years of collecting if I live that long!
Much of Govi’s article concerns the impact of the internet on rare booksellers. While I agree with most of what he says in this regard, there is one point that is grossly misleading and needs both qualification and clarification. He says: ‘the possibility of instantly comparing prices across the internet has meant that prices overall have gone down . . .’ (p 34). While the prices of most secondhand books that aren’t rare have gone down (for the reason he gives), the prices of most rare books have continued to climb. If anything, the upward trend has accelerated during the last decade.
I will give examples of a book that is not rare and two that are. The picturesque atlas of Australasia,published in 1886 in three large volumes, is a grand production and anyone who contributed either text or images could be proud of the end result. However, even after some print dealers have cut up numerous copies for the illustrations many survive intact and there aren’t many book dealers who do not have at least one copy for sale. And usually, it remains unsold because any collector who wants one already has a copy, Hence, there are many copies listed on the net and so prices for it have tended to come down. In this respect Govi is correct; however, he fails to mention what has transpired during this period in relation to the prices of rare books and ephemera. Of course, numerous examples could be given but I will restrict myself to mentioning only two.
I am interested in early Australian literature and about 14 years ago a copy of The Yorick Club: its origin and development (Melbourne, 1911) came up for sale at a Melbourne auction. The book is in very good condition and I was happy to get it for $160. Today (September 2022) there are two copies listed on the net. One is described as ‘ex library in poor condition . . .’ Price $220. The listing of the other copy mentions staining to the boards and other blemishes but it is an improvement on the first copy. Price $330. You may speculate as to what the price is likely to be when a copy in good condition eventually comes up.
The second example is an ephemeral item issued by Berger Paints who had the contract to paint the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Issued as one folded sheet in 1932 to celebrate the opening, they commissioned CJ Dennis to write a witty poem which he titled ‘I Dips Me Lid to the Sydney Harbour Bridge’. I got my copy at an auction in Sydney for $90 about 17 years ago. Recently one was sold by auction for about $400. No copy is currently listed on the net. Even allowing for inflation, these prices show a significant increase since the advent of the internet. Supply and demand – and the opposite of what Govi claims.
Changes in prices have also been influenced by factors other than the internet. Rare books, like art, are subject to changes in fashion. The journals of the early Australian navigators and explorers are still collected by some people but not to the same extent as in the period leading up to the Bicentenary in 1988. Also, listings on the net show that they are not as rare as some people once thought they were. So, in real terms, the prices for most of them have come down. By contrast, Australian literature was largely ignored by most collectors until the latter decades of the 20th century. This century has seen more collectors chasing a diminishing number of books in this field and so prices have, for most of these books, risen dramatically. And in case you are wondering why the supply has diminished, look no further than the rapidly expanding collections of well-funded institutional libraries.
In conclusion, I agree with Govi that most antiquarian booksellers regard the internet as a mixed blessing, however, they wouldn’t be without it as it has expanded their potential market exponentially. As for any serious book collector (and collectors in general), the internet, whatever its limitations, is, I think, the best thing that has happened since the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. Now, I wonder, how many copies of his Bible are listed on the net! No doubt it will not fall into the 80% that Govi says that the collector can now get in the first hour. In fact, I may have to wait considerably longer than that to add one of them to my collection.
Note
1. See <teca.unibo.it/article/view/14345/14505>.
[from Biblionews 417, March 2023, pp 15-17: no images]