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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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First Catalogues - By Bruce McKinney Mr. Babcock's first catalogue. Today he's at work on no. 130 By Bruce McKinney Over the past three years I have acquired 2 to 3 million auction records and about 17,500 dealer catalogues from the period 1850 to the present. I have done so to build the Americana Exchange Database [AED]. Today we have 1,090,974 full text records online and continue to add material non-stop. We of course are also entering upcoming auction lots and adding realized prices after the sales. In the process of sorting through the thousands of dealer catalogues I noticed that new dealers often "announced" their first catalogues and so I began to set aside such catalogues I could identify as "firsts." I now have more than 70 and undoubtedly there are many more among the thousands of catalogues I have yet to examine fully. I offer here, as an electronic file, this collection of firsts and some observations about catalogues in general. [Link to First Catalogues] First catalogues are a remarkable achievement. Accumulate the reference books and the material and then research and write the descriptions. Choose a price, develop selling policies, choose a catalogue format and a printer, create a mailing list, mail the catalogue and pray. It's a wonder so many dealers have created catalogues at all. Failure is a possibility at any stage and success never certain. In the 19th century bookseller catalogues were common. Even run-of-the-mill material was catalogued. With the 20th century came specialization and by the 1940s the general catalogue was disappearing, replaced by specialist presentations. Catalogues since have progressively mined the deepest levels of understanding, parsing the facts, the printers, the sequence, the events and all sort of hitherto less understood points of significance about printed materials. The best dealers have earned and are continuing to earn the premiums they charge for the research they do. Until the 1990s the system seemed to work. Then, with the advent of the internet, it became possible to easily find alternative copies. The dealer, who did the research, could no longer confidently expect to sell their material based on the work they did. Collectors would be motivated to purchase a copy but not necessarily their copy. In time the financial justification for the effort and expense of creating catalogues weakened. Today, fewer and fewer catalogues are issued because the financial underpinnings continue to erode.
First Catalogues - By Bruce McKinney Most dealers last a generation or less. Undoubtedly two or three elements in the bookseller - book buyer equation are going to change. The dealer research premiums, however justified by the work, have not stood up and are not going to stand up. Enough collectors are willing to camp out on dealer research and then buy cheaper copies elsewhere to continue to undermine the premiums that research requires. These days, a dealer who prepares an elaborate explanation of an item can expect to see suspiciously similar descriptions soon posted from other dealers offering the same item. Even when competing dealers don't paraphrase the description their copy will come up in the searches nearby the well researched copy to tempt a buyer to read the better description and then buy the cheaper copy. The seller may know next to nothing but for many buyers price is everything. I myself often buy less expensive copies. I tend to do my own research and to find material in obscure places. I've just bought ten items on eBay after buying about a hundred items on ABE over the past several months. I find I tend to know more about the material I acquire than the seller's do although this is not always the case. I do understand "frequency of appearance" as well as anyone and I know when to wait. Between eBay, the net and dealer catalogues there is a relative value scale although it is different for every book. In buying this way I'm probably just a little ahead of the curve but I speak to collectors all the time that understand the market as well or better than I do. Such collectors need less from skilled dealers. They are however a small minority. For new collectors entering the field the careful and painstaking work that the better dealers do is essential. However, with fewer catalogues offered, the best tool for educating and encouraging collectors is increasingly in short supply; one reason there are not enough new collectors entering the field. Whether there are other ways to effectively educate the new collector remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though. The internet has changed the business more in the past ten years than it changed during the prior five hundred.
First Catalogues - By Bruce McKinney none I spoke with Bert Babcock of Derry, New Hampshire, one of the dealers whose catalogue is included in the attached file of firsts. He believes that he issued his first catalogue in 1977. Since then he has lived through the end of the old way of bookselling, used and seen the demise of AB Weekly, sold at book shows, sold online and now has a website: www.babcockbooks.com. At 63 he remains interested and energetic. Perhaps it will be people like Bert who help the field to navigate its way to a successful landing on the net. In 1977 Mr. Babcock issued Catalogue 1. Today he's working on 130 but he's the exception. Most of the companies whose catalogues are included with this piece are out-of-business or have simply stopped issuing catalogues. So when you look at the first catalogues of dealers remember that fewer new catalogues are being offered today and that catalogues have played an important role in educating new collectors. It isn't clear who is going to take up this slack but it seems likely it will become one of the net's functions. Perhaps the big listing sites will understand that their future sales and success are dependent on new collectors entering the field. Only when this issue is successfully addressed will the transition from traditional bookselling to internet bookselling be complete. In any event I'll personally hope that the best dealers continue to find the financial justification to do the great work of explicating the books and encouraging interest in the collection of old and rare material. Here is a link to First Catalogues.

First Catalogues

- By Bruce McKinney

Mr. Babcock's first catalogue. Today he's at work on no. 130

By Bruce McKinney

Over the past three years I have acquired 2 to 3 million auction records and about 17,500 dealer catalogues from the period 1850 to the present. I have done so to build the Americana Exchange Database [AED]. Today we have 1,090,974 full text records online and continue to add material non-stop. We of course are also entering upcoming auction lots and adding realized prices after the sales.

In the process of sorting through the thousands of dealer catalogues I noticed that new dealers often "announced" their first catalogues and so I began to set aside such catalogues I could identify as "firsts." I now have more than 70 and undoubtedly there are many more among the thousands of catalogues I have yet to examine fully. I offer here, as an electronic file, this collection of firsts and some observations about catalogues in general. [Link to First Catalogues]

First catalogues are a remarkable achievement. Accumulate the reference books and the material and then research and write the descriptions. Choose a price, develop selling policies, choose a catalogue format and a printer, create a mailing list, mail the catalogue and pray. It's a wonder so many dealers have created catalogues at all. Failure is a possibility at any stage and success never certain.

In the 19th century bookseller catalogues were common. Even run-of-the-mill material was catalogued. With the 20th century came specialization and by the 1940s the general catalogue was disappearing, replaced by specialist presentations. Catalogues since have progressively mined the deepest levels of understanding, parsing the facts, the printers, the sequence, the events and all sort of hitherto less understood points of significance about printed materials. The best dealers have earned and are continuing to earn the premiums they charge for the research they do. Until the 1990s the system seemed to work. Then, with the advent of the internet, it became possible to easily find alternative copies. The dealer, who did the research, could no longer confidently expect to sell their material based on the work they did. Collectors would be motivated to purchase a copy but not necessarily their copy. In time the financial justification for the effort and expense of creating catalogues weakened. Today, fewer and fewer catalogues are issued because the financial underpinnings continue to erode.

First Catalogues

- By Bruce McKinney

Most dealers last a generation or less.

Undoubtedly two or three elements in the bookseller - book buyer equation are going to change. The dealer research premiums, however justified by the work, have not stood up and are not going to stand up. Enough collectors are willing to camp out on dealer research and then buy cheaper copies elsewhere to continue to undermine the premiums that research requires. These days, a dealer who prepares an elaborate explanation of an item can expect to see suspiciously similar descriptions soon posted from other dealers offering the same item. Even when competing dealers don't paraphrase the description their copy will come up in the searches nearby the well researched copy to tempt a buyer to read the better description and then buy the cheaper copy. The seller may know next to nothing but for many buyers price is everything.

I myself often buy less expensive copies. I tend to do my own research and to find material in obscure places. I've just bought ten items on eBay after buying about a hundred items on ABE over the past several months. I find I tend to know more about the material I acquire than the seller's do although this is not always the case. I do understand "frequency of appearance" as well as anyone and I know when to wait. Between eBay, the net and dealer catalogues there is a relative value scale although it is different for every book. In buying this way I'm probably just a little ahead of the curve but I speak to collectors all the time that understand the market as well or better than I do. Such collectors need less from skilled dealers. They are however a small minority.

For new collectors entering the field the careful and painstaking work that the better dealers do is essential. However, with fewer catalogues offered, the best tool for educating and encouraging collectors is increasingly in short supply; one reason there are not enough new collectors entering the field. Whether there are other ways to effectively educate the new collector remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though. The internet has changed the business more in the past ten years than it changed during the prior five hundred.

First Catalogues

- By Bruce McKinney

none

I spoke with Bert Babcock of Derry, New Hampshire, one of the dealers whose catalogue is included in the attached file of firsts. He believes that he issued his first catalogue in 1977. Since then he has lived through the end of the old way of bookselling, used and seen the demise of AB Weekly, sold at book shows, sold online and now has a website: www.babcockbooks.com. At 63 he remains interested and energetic. Perhaps it will be people like Bert who help the field to navigate its way to a successful landing on the net. In 1977 Mr. Babcock issued Catalogue 1. Today he's working on 130 but he's the exception. Most of the companies whose catalogues are included with this piece are out-of-business or have simply stopped issuing catalogues.

So when you look at the first catalogues of dealers remember that fewer new catalogues are being offered today and that catalogues have played an important role in educating new collectors. It isn't clear who is going to take up this slack but it seems likely it will become one of the net's functions. Perhaps the big listing sites will understand that their future sales and success are dependent on new collectors entering the field. Only when this issue is successfully addressed will the transition from traditional bookselling to internet bookselling be complete. In any event I'll personally hope that the best dealers continue to find the financial justification to do the great work of explicating the books and encouraging interest in the collection of old and rare material.

Here is a link to First Catalogues.