A culture of geographic diversity
We’re particularly pleased that this issue of Book Lovers’ Paradise Magazine represents a geographical diversity we expect to expand in future issues. Indeed, book lovers from all across the country can expect to find useful information to help them build and refine their collections. Our cover story celebrates the passion that surely is felt by all people caught up in the Bibliosphere, no matter where they are. The author is Ed Markiewicz, owner of Montgomery Rare Books & Manuscripts. Ed has recently moved from Portland, Oregon, to Massachusetts. It is something of a homecoming for him. He is originally from New England. Ed is co-host of Rare Book Cafe. Carol Mobley, who promotes the Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair, has been an ephemera dealer since the 1990s. Her article on vintage appliance ephemera and the story they tell of our progress to the modern kitchen. Bookseller Bibi Mohamed, who owns Imperial Fine Books in New York City, offers advice for collectors of fine bindings. Native New Yorker Charlie Neuschafer owns New World Maps in South Florida. He tells how to learn the age of your old map. Lee Linn, owner of The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia, offers The Last Word. Lee is associate editor of Book Lovers’ Paradise Magazine and co-host of Rare Book Cafe. Where in the world are you, and how did you come to the Bibliosphere? We’d love to hear from you. Just send us an email to bookloversparadisemagazine@gmail.com. –T. Allan Smith, Editor
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In pursuit of your passion
In the Bibliosphere, there are many with roles to play in the churning world of words, and they’re all played with such passion. We celebrate this amazing world to which we are all drawn.
Collecting appliance ephemera
Vintage brochures for new refrigerators show how far we’ve come in the kitchen.
How old are the maps in your collection?
You can learn to decipher the codes map publishers used.
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Collecting fine bindings? What you should know
Finely bound books have been highly desirable for 1,500 years.
In pursuit of your passion
In the Bibliosphere, there are many with roles to play in the churning world of words
By Ed Markiewicz
Doyou remember the exhilaration sharing that first long kiss with the one whom you knew was The One? Yeah, it was great. However, for some, it may have fallen short of the time you found a copy of the 1895 first illustrated edition of Pride and Prejudice, with the gilt peacock on the cover, at a garage sale for $3. The former is a love of one person, which, if fortunate in life, you can experience every day. The other is a material object that sits on your bookshelf to be admired every day – an emotion that can be experienced again and again with each new acquisition. It is sometimes difficult to remember which one made our heart beat faster, and which one we can’t do without.
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FROM THEAUTHOR'S COLLECTION
Opposite: The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. (Two volumes) The threequarter leather edition. Above left: the green cloth edition. Above right: the tan calf edition.
Left: An example of a desire for an upgrade to the collection, in this case, a more worn version of the three-quarter leather replaced with one in much better condition.
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become the foundation of what is proudly called a collection. Then, fascinated by the possibility of living among these treasures, some of us took that leap of faith, which is; “I’d be proud to be middle class if I could make my living from books”.
Once we were old enough to discover money, we discovered that money could buy books. At some point we realize that two books are a collection, then the joy and curse of book collecting blossoms within. For each collector, according to their interests and means, irrespective of the genre, author, publisher, binding, or any other attribute of the object that is a book, the game is on, the pursuit is in progress. Some passionate collectors even become Completists. The Completist is one who not only must have a copy of every edition and variant in their specialty collecting pantheon, but has likely visited the gravesite of their favorite author. The Completist did not travel all that way not to have their picture taken in front of a tombstone, which is then framed on the shelf beside their collection.
Thirty-five years ago my children told me I needed a hobby, and they were right.
Thirty-five years ago my children told me I needed a hobby, and they were right. After an objective selfexamination of my interests and abilities, I decided to collect a book written and signed by every President. Boy, was I naïve. Not every President wrote a book, and I had no idea if every president had signed a book, and I certainly could not afford an autograph by George Washington. But off I went in pursuit of these Golden Fleece. I consider myself fortunate to have never completed my collection, otherwise I’d never have the thrill of this avocation, which has become my side hustle.
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Along with both U. S. Grant and D. D. Eisenhower, I am an alumni of the U. S. Military Academy. As a collector, I was always on the lookout for material related to these two Presidents. One book that enthralled me was Grant’s twovolume Memoir. I was consumed with collecting all four bindings of this epoch; the green cloth, the tan calf, the three-quarter leather and the full morocco versions. Unsatisfied with owning a single copy, I was constantly on the lookout for an upgrade, the best condition copy I could afford. This pursuit paid off because when I became a bookseller, it was the most frequently sold book in my inventory at twelve invoices.
The modern collector is likely to have a “wants list” on all of the major on-line book selling sites, as well as auction houses. Such collectors have “Book store near me” saved in their Google Maps. They also go to book fairs, where they meet book dealers who were once collectors like themselves – only these advocates took their acquisitiveness to another level.
The Bessemer furnace of passion, burning inside the members of this chosen profession, lights the pathway of accumulated knowledge and warms the readers’ soul from chapter one to the very last period. What else could explain the near Herculean effort of carrying two dozen 35-pound boxes of books, along with seven collapsible bookcases and other sundry items, several times a year to book fairs. Into the car, across three state lines, out of the car, up the steps, into the venue, empty the boxes, display the wares and then do it all in reverse two days later.
At the end of the book fair, when queried by one of our peers, “How was the show for you?” regardless of the actual results, the reply is always tinged with hope and optimism. “Good show”, (it paid for all of my expenses). “Excellent third quarter 2024
book lovers’ paradise magazine show”, (I made lots of new contacts and paid for all of my expenses)”. “Tremendous show”, (I paid for my expenses, made lots of new contacts and I’m going home with more books than I brought).
The real answer to what is success in the book business is much more complicated (and the results more subjective), but one rarely articulated aloud. As a booksellers, you connect readers with hours of pleasure and collectors with coveted objects of joy. That is also the place where a bookseller derives a measure of their own self-actualization. When a newly minted high school English teacher appears in your booth, fawning over a classic edition with a fore-edge painting and says, “I can only afford $75”, you believe her and sell her the book anyway. Putting that treasured copy or item of ephemera into the hands of its next lifetime owner is the dividend of the profession.
As used book dealers, we ally ourselves with customers who are readers and collectors. We endeavor to populate their shelves with objects that give them happiness, and ourselves a few ducats. But that is often an unequal exchange, for the thrill of a satisfied customer doesn’t always have an equivalency. Few of us are flogging this career exclusively for the money, but for the choice. Long after the price is forgotten, the book and the memory are cherished by both sides.
Ed Markiewicz is owner of Montgomery Rare Books & Manuscripts. His is also co-host of Rare Book Cafe, The Book Lovers’ Rendezvous, the streamed podcast available on YouTube, YouTube Music, Facebook, and Instagram. Rare Book Cafe is sponsored by Biblio .com and by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. Ed Markiewicz can be reached at ed@montgomeryrarebooks.com
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Advertising postcard for J.T. Clough Furniture, Greeley, CO
Collecting appliance ephemera
The story of how far we’ve come is contained in vintage brochures for
new refrigerators
By Carol Mobley
Nothing has changed the modern kitchen more than the introduction of electricity. The early 1900s kitchen had the ice box on the back porch and wood stove in the kitchen. With electricity, the refrigerator was moved inside the kitchen and it became the focal point instead of the stove. By 1930, Westinghouse Electric boasted that “electricity makes women free.”
A 1912 postcard illustrating the modern kitchen with the sanitary and biggest ice-saving refrigerator (ice box). Notice third quarter 2024
book lovers’ paradise magazine the location on the back porch away from the inside heat of the wood cook stove. Also notice the freestanding sink and the only cupboard being the Hoosier.
The first household refrigerator was available in 1913. But it wasn’t until General Motors (GM) purchased Guardian Frigerator Company in 1918 that we saw mass production of electric refrigerators.
Appliance companies copied the assembly lines established by the automobile industry. Not to be outdone, General Electric (GE) boasted that they had 64 skilled engineers working since 1913 to create “an electric refrigerator so efficient, so simplified that it could literally be installed and forgotten.” Forget until it needed to be moved!
1928 General Electric
Refrigerator sales booklet. The open legs often failed when the appliance had to be moved.
The compressor was mounted on top of the unit and most refrigerators weighed between 180 pounds and 360 pounds, depending on the make and model.
Refrigerators and kitchen cabinets of the time all had open legs at the bottom, perhaps to allow for ease of cleaning underneath. The open legs on refrigerators was a design that had to change just because of the weight of the appliance. Frequently the legs would fail when someone tried to move the appliance.
GE and Frigidaire were the two biggest names in home refrigeration and kitchen design revolved around the
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refrigerator. In this Westinghouse Electric brochure, the efficiency of the kitchen is considered, meal preparation with the least amount of steps from pantry to table.
By the end of WWII, companies like Westinghouse, Youngstown Kitchens, Mutschler Kitchens & Mengel Royal Wood Kitchens, just to name a few, advertised designing your dream kitchen. Postcards and booklets were readily available for the homeowners as a way to encourage households to upgrade their kitchens.
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1930s Westinghouse Electric brochure on kitchen design
Late 1950s advertising postcard for Pierson & Roth kitchen. By now the kitchen sink was incorporated into the cabinets alongside an electric dishwasher.
The modern kitchen with all electric appliances not only saved a woman time but provided safe and sanitary food storage. By 1944, 85 per cent of all households had a refrigerator. Small freezer units were now included, which allowed the storage of frozen goods and making of ice, something never before capable in the home setting. Notice by now that the compressors were moved off the top of the refrigerator. Another design change was the introduction of factory-made cabinets that mounted to the walls and sealed the cabinet to the floor. By now the kitchen sink was incorporated into the cabinet along side an electric dishwasher. These cabinets were available in both wood and metal. Most kitchen plumbing was not as water tight as today, which made for problems with wood rot and rust underneath the sink.
Then in the late 1950s something wonderful happened to the refrigerator. Americans lived in the land of plenty. Cars were as big as boats with huge chrome bumpers and tail fins.
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Illustration of 1958 kitchen, refrigerator with chrome handles. 1958 advertising post card for Mutschler Kitchens, Denver distributor.
The design of the refrigerator door illustrates the abundance in American households. Large chrome handles, unusual colors and larger capacity refrigerators began replacing the simple 1920s and 1930s plain white models. The ultra-modern kitchen had a refrigerator that was incorporated into the cabinets so that each cabinet held different types of foods at different temperatures. This kitchen was clutter free, no appliances on the counter, only the fittings to mount the blender or mixer that was stored below. Other conveniences were added to the refrigerator –larger freezers, more interior capacity, self-defrosting and automatic ice makers.
And so the modern kitchen was born. Electricity is indispensible not only for the refrigerator but for the dozens of small appliances designed to make food preparation easier.
Kitchen appliances came with operating manuals that most women kept with their cookbooks since recipes were third quarter 2024
“Feel like a queen in your kitchen.” A 1959 advertising brochure for Frigidaire Home
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book lovers’ paradise magazine included. Postcards and brochures are how companies let the public know what was available.
People collected these ephemeral items and it has helped document changes to the American kitchen. And now, the stove with the large vent hood or microwave oven has regained its prominence in the kitchen, not replacing the refrigerator but complimenting the overall look of a well designed kitchen.
There is so much history documented on postcards and paper ephemera. Much of it is overlooked or simply discarded as trivial or insignificant. But there are people who saved these items from the trash bin.
In today’s market, you can find them in the usual places, Facebook Marketplaces, Ebay, or other online sales venues. But the best way to find these treasures is to attend a postcard or paper ephemera show. There are many such events across the United States and Europe. The Ephemera Society of America sponsors an annual event in March. There are a large number of antiquarian book fairs where paper ephemera is also found, like the Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair, which will be held in Castle Rock, Colorado (August 17-18). There are also local postcard shows, like the Denver Postcard & Paper Show (July 19-20), not to mention local auction houses where estates and other material is sold.
What this all says, if you are looking for items to fill or start a collection of your own, have fun! Get out to local events, antique shops, book fairs, antique shows and auctions. Root around in boxes of paper items. You’ll find amazing treasures to add to your collection.
Carol Mobley is the promoter for the Denver Postcard & Paper Show www.DenverPostcardShow.com, usually held in January, May, and July. All future show information will be posted to the website so keep checking.
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How old are the maps in your collection?
Different maps publishers used different codes. You can learn to figure them out.
By Charlie Neuschafer
Iwas born in MCMXLI. How old am I?
If you can easily answer that, then you already know one of the tips for dating old maps. Those Roman numerals used by map makers hundreds of years ago still show up occasionally on maps today, as well as in books and movie credits.
Commercial map makers often don’t want to make the year of publication obvious to a prospective buyer, lest the map appear to be out of date, so they will use other techniques to indicate a date.
Some will print the year in tiny type, tucked into an out-of-the-way place like the lower margin or a discreet corner, so be ready to make like Sherlock Holmes and grab your magnifying glass.
Others will use a secret code to show when a map was printed. Let’s take a look at some of these codes. One of the more familiar names in the map world is Rand McNally & Company, which issued its first map in 1872. Today the most common Rand McNally maps we see are those covering automobile
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1934 Conoco map of Florida has a code in the lower right corner to help determine the date. The reference to transportation to Havana helps place the map in history.
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Our video on YouTube helps show some of the ways to date a road map.
roads, published for various oil companies, state highway departments, and local chambers of commerce. In 1919, Rand McNally began using a letter code to identify a map’s year of publication.
H.M. Gousha & Company, another major map maker, published its first road map in 1927 and also used an alphabetical coding system.
To help you identify publication dates of Rand McNally and H.M Gousha maps we have prepared a chart and posted it on our website. Here’s a link.
Rand McNally and H.M Gousha may be the map makers you will most frequently encounter, but there are many others, and most of those also used publication codes.
The Hagstrom Map Company code used the letters in the company name, plus two extra letters, to identify year of publication. Geographia assigned the digits 1-0 to letters in the word Cumberland. The third quarter 2024
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Screenshot from video shows Geographica’s code scheme using the word CUMBERLAND and assigning numbers to each letter.
Code on this map helps decipher the publication date for the map.
Mid-West Map Company, Arrow, MAPCO, and the Automobile Club of Southern California used systems of number position and transposition to identify year of publication. The General Drafting Company was the most straightforward in the display of dates, usually plainly stating the year of publication, although they did introduce a compilation code, which started appearing on their maps in 1958.
While dates and codes can be helpful in figuring out when a map was published, there are times third quarter 2024
book lovers’ paradise magazine when they are simply not there. We must then let history and geography provide the clues that will help date our map.
The cartographic details on a map can be useful in at least giving a general idea of when a map was compiled. On older maps, look for features like place names, geographic boundaries, and the status of railroad and highway construction. If, for example, a map shows the Pennsylvania Turnpike as under construction, then you can deduce that it was printed circa late-1930s since the highway did not open to traffic until 1940.
The cartographic details on a
map can be useful in at least giving a general idea of when a map was compiled.
There are many more examples than we can catalog here, but here are a couple that can help nail down approximate publication dates:
• Present-day West Virginia was part of Virginia until 1863.
• Constantinople became Istanbul in 1930.
• Prior to 1991 Saint Petersburg (Russia) was known as Leningrad, before that as Petrograd, and even before that as Saint Petersburg.
• In the United States, the transcontinental railroad was completed coast-to-coast in 1869.
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• New York’s George Washington Bridge opened in 1931, six years before the Golden Gate Bridge.
• Those Interstate Highways we take for granted today did not start to show up on maps until 1956. And 30 years before that the United States Numbered Highway System began to replace named trails like the Lincoln Highway, Midland Trail, and Dixie Highway.
Many of the name changes and boundary realignments can also be a helpful aid in dating globes, as well as maps. Here’s a link compiled by globe-maker Replogle that works with maps, too. If you’re inclined to puzzle solving, enjoy doing the crossword in your daily paper, or coming up with the correct questions in the Geography category on Jeopardy, then playing detective and trying to find out when a map was printed can be a lot of fun!
There are a number of resources we can recommend, including our website, YouTube channel, and Facebook page [and Facebook group]. Joining the Road Map Collectors Association or the International Map Collectors Society are also good options.
Charlie Neuschafer is an author and founder of New World Maps, Inc. of Lake Worth, Florida. He grew up reading Shakespeare and Mad Magazine, and has an abiding fascination with the romance and brain-tickling allure of old maps.
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Takeabreak.
Life of Napoleon in four volumes. Below: The beautiful spines displayed
What you should know if you want to collect fine bindings
Finely bound books have been considered highly prized items for 1,500 years
By Bibi Mohamed
Bookbinding as an art form and practical endeavor has proliferated over the past 1,500 years in the western world. Finely bound books have always been considered highly prized items. Today antiquarian book collectors still appreciate these precious volumes.
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Foldout full-color illustration from Life of Napoleon. Illustrations and number of plates are considerations for the collector.
Fine binding generally implies the book was hand-sewn and bound by hand. The fine bindings on books were originally created to protect a book from handling and harm, thereby preserving the content. These bindings soon began to serve as part of the book's history and character, sometimes revealing valuable insights about the book's provenance. Originally created for wealthy book lovers or for presentation to those with influence, they served as a symbol of status and wealth. Designer bindings are perhaps the only books you should judge by their covers. In making them, artists use materials such as leather, wood, metal, and cloth to create unique bindings or structures to house an already published work. The results are often stunning combinations of colors shapes, typography, and texture. The outer covering of a
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Through the Looking Glass – Alice in Wonderland in two volumes.
binding provides an obvious source for decoration, and some books have been lavishly ornamented with gold tooling, carved ivory, jewels and, embroidery, to name just a few. Finely bound books show the technique, exquisite materials, craftsmanship, and design that creates a binding of strength and beauty.
The best designer bindings capture a book's relationship between interior and exterior, and enhance the visual, tactile, and pleasurable experience of reading. The inside of the book is reflected on the surface, resulting in an object that is both book and art. Book collectors who wanted something special would commission a bookbinder to execute a binding in an expensive material, often morocco leather rather than calf, and might also ask for it to be decorated with gold tooling.
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Execution and quality of design was of the utmost importance.
In the collecting of fine bindings, condition is a great. even paramount, priority since you are not collecting just a text but a fine object of art. The state of preservation of a binding is as much a factor in the object's rarity – and therefore price – as the skill that went into its making. Demanding good condition in the bindings you buy is good sense.
Important information collectors need to know about the physical state of a book includes:
Illustrations, number of plates. age of the binding (one would look for a book as close to its original condition as possible). the dentelles (the decorated edge of the leather that the binder brings over the board from the outside of the binding, sometimes called the turn-in) and the gilt edges.
The vulnerable parts of a leather bound book are the head and foot of the spine. The first part of the joint to go is usually the leather forming the outer joint or hinge. These require careful examination.
The past fifty years have seen antique leather books change from simply things of beauty to one of the hottest antique collectibles. This has created significant value and
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Personal memoirs of President Ulysses S. Grant.
book lovers’ paradise magazine return for those who have invested in fine antique leather bindings. Collecting them has indeed become an important classification all its own within the vast book trade.
What is different is that good, well-executed but otherwise unexceptional antique leather bindings and sets have also become extremely desirable and rare. Books that just ten or fifteen years ago could be purchased for little or nothing have now seen an unprecedented rise in desirability and value. Again, it’s the old story of supply and demand.
No one doubts or questions the beauty of antique leather bindings. One merely has to walk into a room where the bookshelves are resplendent with the beauty of fine calf and moroccan leather bindings. The warmth of the room embraces you. Even a room where there is simply a grouping of leather books–less than a shelf full, your eye is automatically drawn to “the look” of the fine leather bindings. To pick up a book and to feel the supple leather and examine the fine artistry and craftsmanship of a finely bound leather book is a wonderful experience in and of itself.
Bibi Mohamed is the owner of Imperial Fine Books in New York City. She specializes in leather-bound sets, Cosway bindings, jeweled bindings, fore-edge paintings, children’s illustrated, Americana, sporting, color plates, and first editions. She has been a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America since 1990.
The dentelles (or decorated edges of the leather that the binder brings over the board from the outside of the binding) require careful examination.
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No one here has a Passion Problem
By Lee Linn
Passion – strong and barely controllable emotion. If your passion is for books, Erasmus was right. Who needs a latte when the bookstore is next door to Starbuck’s? Your biblio fairy godmother is not suggesting that the mortgage money go to the bookseller, or the electric bill be diverted to pay for a signed first edition. After all, you do need light to read by and candles are so 18th century. But we spend our money where our heart is and if you are reading this your heart is probably already firmly tucked between the pages of a good book.
“When I get a little money, I buy books; if any is left, I buy food and clothes.”
—Erasmus, 16th Century Dutch philosopher
Or perhaps your passion is for something else or several “something elses.” That’s fine, passion is what keeps us moving forward, enjoying life. I’m going to get personal here. Four years ago Bob, my husband of 50 years, died suddenly pursuing one of his passions, his daily five-mile walk.
He, of course, was one of my passions. It was early in the COVID lockdown, we were together 24/7, book fairs and travel plans were on hold, the book business was a big question mark, but we had each other, we had our yard of third quarter 2024
The Last Word is brought to you by the Fairy Godmother of the Bibliosphere.
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book lovers’ paradise magazine wildflowers (another passion) and we were helping homeschool our grandchildren. Passion was abruptly replaced with a feeling of devastation.
The great Southern tradition of friends and neighbors arriving with meals, visitation at the funeral home and an emotional service followed by a gathering of close friends, drinking and sharing stories was impossible. But my family gathered, food and wine and flowers and cards appeared on the doorstep, and hugs from grandchildren kept me going.
My sons asked what did I plan to do with the books. Bob had done most of the buying and researching while I handled the business end of things, but what else could I do with all those books? I reached out to the bookselling community to tell them I was still in business. I started participating in Getman’s Virtual fairs, and gradually my passion for the business returned.
The bookseller community is like an extended family, and becoming involved with Rare Book Café (thank you, Allan!) reinforced the feeling. And now, four years later, while my life is not what I had imagined it would be, I have built a somewhat different one, not only with the books, but our local arts center as well.
Passion is a strong word, but it gets you up in the morning and propels you through difficult times.
So don’t apologize to anyone that you’d rather go to a book fair than play golf or that Steinbeck is more important than fancy steak dinners. Enjoy what you love! Of course, if you had rather have that dinner than a nice copy of Cannery Row, some of us would say you’ve got a Passion Problem!
Lee Linn is owner of The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia. She also serves as co-host of Rare Book Cafe and is associate editor of Book Lovers’ Paradise Magazine.
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