Monday, December 14, 2009

Book Collector's Terminology

I just discovered Traditions & Culture of Collecting: A Course in Correct Cataloging, or Notes to the Neophyte and A Second Course in Correct Cataloging on Jeremy Norman's site about the history of science, medicine and technology:
These two humorous handbooks or glossaries of terms for antiquarian booksellers, originally written and published in 1958 and 1962 by San Francisco antiquarian bookseller David Magee, should still evoke howls of delight from any dealer, collector or librarian familiar with the day-to-day problems of the book trade.

The illustrations above are from my oldest book find. All but pages 145-376 are missing. The edges are extremely worn. Or, I should say: “show extreme evidence of great devotional love by former owner.” Some of the words have "f" in place of "s" as in the word "fin" [for sin] and the first word of the next page appears at the bottom of the one previous. The sermons are dated 1688-1691.

2 comments:

MrCachet said...

LOL. More Dumpster Diving Gold?

layers said...

what a find-- I love old books, worn and weathered pages