Rare Book Monthly
Articles - October - 2004 Issue
OP Becomes Fine Books & Collections
OP in black & white.
The focus continues to be on the collector, albeit a wider variety of they, the toughest people to find in the world of books. Dealers, like cordwood, are stacked-up on Abebooks all the way past 12,000 but nowhere are collectors, who exist in theoretically huge numbers, as visible. This revised publication reaffirms its goal to continue the accumulation of this rare breed that dealers may intersperse their advertised messages to commune with them. This effort seems about right in its goal to connect with traditional collectors. The subscription price is a modest $25, a price that suggests management sees their future more among plebians than patricians. Certainly the numbers are in the plebians. As Scott explained it, "We didn't do a focus group on the price. It just seemed like a reasonable amount." The larger goal is to help and suggest ways in which collectors may creatively collect. In this it undertakes a portion of the essential challenge that this field today confronts: to inspire collectors to the collecting opportunities that are daily being redefined by electronic commerce and huge, searchable databases. It's a lot to make sense of. "Dealers have always," Scott said, "given special attention to the wealthiest collectors. Fine Books & Collections is geared more to those who are on their own."
Scott continues to work from Eureka, California. His partner Webb contributes the business side of the business from Durham, North Carolina, pre-production and design are handled in New York and ink hits paper in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Here is a link to their website: http://www.finebooksmagazine.com
We wish them the best.
