There’s no question that times have changed for book hounds. Back in 2005 when I first got into this as a hobby, flipping wasn’t a common term and there certainly weren’t smartphones with dozens of apps designed to scan and identify valuable antiques of all types. Back when my parents were learning the ropes of …
I spent a lot of time with 20th century American literature when it came to antique books, which made it much easier to date them as even books in the early 1900s generally would have a copyright page from most major or even mid-sized book publishers. This made my search for publication dates easy as …
Even if you’re not going to read an antique book, and there are good reasons for not, showing them off is a major part of having an impressive collection. The problem is that many common ways of stacking, shelving, or otherwise showing off books can actually cause wear or damage over the long-term, especially on …
One thing that has been interesting to watch with the growth of flipping channels, shows like American Picker, and the explosion of YouTube (and society’s obsession with side hustles) is watching something like antique book flipping, something that used to be incredibly niche, going very mainstream. This is to the dismay of some of us …
One thing about being a bookhound is that you are always going to eventually run across something different, something weird, something interesting. Whether it was wood cut prints a few centuries old to books too damaged to be valuable but with crazy illustrations on good pages in the interior or uncut pages, there’s always a …
This is a topic that is extremely close to my heart, and with good reason. Sinclair Lewis first edition novels are valuable collectibles, as this oft-forgotten author’s influence on American literature and American society can’t be underestimated. In his time he was a literary giant, someone everyone during the times of Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and …
Sinclair Lewis was a giant in American literature and one of the major voices of the 20th century. Also he is among the most forgotten, which is definitely strange when you look at how big an influence he was in culture, literature, and politics. Lauded as a huge influence to John Steinbeck, among many others, …
If you are going to get into the world of collecting rare books then you definitely will need to learn how to tell the various conditions apart. This includes not only the widely recognized conditions for used books but also many “non-official” grades that are still widely used to help further delineate the condition of …
If you’re going to make money buying and selling first edition books, or “book flipping” collectible books, then you’d better learn the difference between a first edition and a first printing! While this might not be a big deal for readers, it’s absolutely huge for book collectors, book hounds, and antique book sellers. A first …
Everyone who has been a bookhound for any amount of time has a story to tell. We all have those stories of insane finds, of huge letdowns, of that book that would have been a thousand dollar find if it didn’t have a giant library stamp on the front cover, inside page, and back cover …