Antiquarian books and other antiques

[Ciel_Rouge]

I've had a sort of inclination for antique things since I was about 6 but now I guess I am becoming a full-blown antiquarian freak as we speak My collection of books from before 1945 has recently expanded to include 3 items and I also put a proper bookshelf in my room to hold the future purchases.

I have recently learned about a cool film focusing on people interested in antiquarian books - it's called The Ninth Gate (starring Johnny Depp). I wonder if there are more antiquarian-themed films out there...

I am also planning to start collecting antique maps, photos, pocket watches and clocks, teacups and coffee cups and other tableware items.

How about you? Any sings of love for the antique stuff?

[MN Dave]

I get weirded out around antiques. Not sure why.

[secondwind]

I love books of all ages, and I started collecting first editions, especially signed by the author, a few years ago.  My plan is to start selling them off to pay the electric bill when I am reaching the point of outliving my money    Of course, if I don't live that long, I'll never have to sell them and I have a better chance of reading them all!

[Cristofori]

I get weirded out around antiques. Not sure why.

Better not listen to any of those historical recordings then!

[MN Dave]

Better not listen to any of those historical recordings then!

Not sounds. Just objects...for some reason.

[WI Dan]

I'm really drawn to antique pocket knives and fishing lures, but don't have many of either.  That stuff has gotten pretty expensive, and I don't enjoy running around to garage sales to look for bargains.

One of my sisters has quite a collection of "mustache cups", among other such stuff.  She also has a working player piano and a coffee table that was made from an old blacksmith's bellows.  Pretty cool, but the inside of her house is like a small museum, ... never sure where I'm allowed to sit.    It's a neat place to visit, but ....

[Ciel_Rouge]

But what? My place is also turning into a time machine, with furniture selected to at least comply with sort of a 1930s style. Only my computer suggests a different time period. I even put a bookshelf for my books there and the books are about half from 1980s and half from 1910-1938 so far but well, there are not many of them yet

[WI Dan]

It's a neat place to visit, but ....

But what?

It makes me feel like I fell down the rabbit hole.    

[Herman]

I love books of all ages, and I started collecting first editions, especially signed by the author, a few years ago.  My plan is to start selling them off to pay the electric bill when I am reaching the point of outliving my money    Of course, if I don't live that long, I'll never have to sell them and I have a better chance of reading them all!

If you're hoping to get a good price for these books, they better be absolutely mint.

Generally books are not a good financial investment; they're a mass product by definition.

[Elgarian]

I love books of all ages, and I started collecting first editions, especially signed by the author, a few years ago. 

The author's signature on a book that I love is like the icing on the cake - it personalises what is essentially a mass-produced thing - which doesn't matter at all to many people, but it matters to me.

The antiquarian aspect is distinct from this  though - there was a period some years ago when I sought out eighteenth-century copies of books by people like Johnson, Chesterfield, Walpole - writers of the period who particularly interest me. If you're prepared to buy individual volumes from incomplete sets, these can be found quite cheaply in the characteristic dark plain brown leather bindings of the time, and they give me a real buzz when I pick them up and read them.

[secondwind]

The author's signature on a book that I love is like the icing on the cake - it personalises what is essentially a mass-produced thing - which doesn't matter at all to many people, but it matters to me.

Yes, I like the signatures.  They make the books special to me.  Today I forced myself to do a couple of unpleasant errands--the worst was going to the Motor Vehicle Administration to renew my driver's license--and afterward decided to reward myself with a brief book-seeking spree at a nearby thrift shop.   I almost immediately put my hands on two signed first edition novels.  At $2.57 each, I decided they were worth the investment.  One of them, Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer, may jump the reading queue.  It features a clarinetist and an appendix of songs from the novel at the end, including my immediate favorite "Too Many Books (The Song of the Jaded Literary Critic)".  A sample:

Chorus:

Books! Books! Books!
There are just too many books!
Books! Books! Books!
There are just too many books!
I have no space to write
I have no time to read
There are just too many books. . .indeed!

(and the last verse. . .)

Once I loved everything I read
I loved Don Quixote
I loved The Naked and the Dead
I loved Truman Capote
But Coleridge was my albatross
And Kafka was a trial
Now I have a hard time reading Dickens
Even Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
Bibliophilia is the disease
That I finally shook
And here's the way I cured it
I read too many books

(Chorus)

Clearly my decision to go book shopping this afternoon was inspired!

The antiquarian aspect is distinct from this  though - there was a period some years ago when I sought out eighteenth-century copies of books by people like Johnson, Chesterfield, Walpole - writers of the period who particularly interest me. If you're prepared to buy individual volumes from incomplete sets, these can be found quite cheaply in the characteristic dark plain brown leather bindings of the time, and they give me a real buzz when I pick them up and read them.

This aspect hasn't hit me full strength yet, and I hope it holds off awhile, because I have NOWHERE IN THE HOUSE to put more books.  There are just too many books . . . indeed!