BOOKSELLERS ADAPT TO THE 21ST CENTURY

The rare book trade faces plenty of challenges. Unlike great robber-baron bibliophiles such John Pierpont Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, today’s super-wealthy prefer to build art collections rather than libraries. Art has become a globalized alternative investment, generating a top-performing yield of 21 percent in 2017, according to the latest wealth report published by the realtors Knight Frank. Rare books do not feature in the report’s basket of “luxury investments.”

Dealers and auctioneers tend to refer to books instead as “stores of value,” reflecting a generally static price structure and customer base, which doesn’t excite alternative investors. As result, the rare book trade depends on knowledgeable collectors and institutions — and fellow dealers — to drive sales.

And there were sales at the A.B.A. fair, such as when Aquila Books of Calgary in Canada sold an 1871 first edition of Charles Darwin’s “The Descent of Man,” in which the author used the word “evolution” for the first time. Mr. Attenborough bought it, for £4,000.

Aquila, which specializes in exploration and evolution, made about £30,000 of sales at the A.B.A. fair, according to its founder, Cameron Treleaven. “I’m happy with that,” said Mr. Treleaven, who explained that fairs accounted about 40 percent of his annual sales, with another 35 percent generated through online trading.

“The arrival of the internet was the defining moment of my career,” added Mr. Treleaven. “It allowed us to find clients we never knew existed.”

Bernard Quaritch, for instance, took a rare single leaf from Gutenberg’s epoch-making 1450 Bible to the A.B.A.A. fair in New York and the A.B.A. one in London, priced at £100,000. It didn’t manage to sell at these fairs, but it is out there on the company’s Instagram account. As of Thursday the post had attracted 98 likes.

The dusty old book trade is evolving. Gradually.

To read the complete article, see:
Antiquarian Booksellers Adapt to the 21st Century (Gradually) (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/arts/design/rare-books-internet.html)

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