Rebecca Romney
@rebeccaromney
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Rare book dealer @typepunchmatrix , the book specialist @PawnStars , co-founder, Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. “A cockeyed optimist of bibliophilia” -VARIETY
Washington, DC
Joined April 2009
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
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Pinned Tweet
Since Twitter is structured to be ephemeral, my new pinned tweet will be a thread of threads, gathering many of my previous tweets about rare book collecting, working with rare book dealers, and other FAQs. Here we go:
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Brightening your TL this morning with first edition books from Virginia Woolf’s own Hogarth Press, in jackets designed by her sister, Vanessa Bell.
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I turn 36 this month, coming on 13 years as a rare bookseller. I wonder when I’ll stop getting messages conveying amazement that I have “knowledge of books” at “such a young age”? Not today, it seems.
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It is my birthday today and literally all I want to do to celebrate is read the new
@ilona_andrews
book straight through. Oh, and cake. I would like some cake too.
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Finally an article about the rare book heist that observes what the evidence points to: experienced criminals veered naively into rare books when they saw an opportunity — and didn’t realize how stupid it is to try to resell them on the black market.
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Since rare book twitter is on the subject -- a White Gloves Conversation in Three Acts, from a DM I received a few months ago:
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Just remember, when you post something stupid on social media, somewhere a 22nd century historian is laughing at you.
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Typically I ignore the clickbait articles & videos that appear because of Pawn Stars: they're riddled with verifiable errors & purposely misleading gotchas. (For the record: I wasn't born in Vegas, I have never been fired, I still film on Pawn Stars.) But this one is too funny.
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@RealGDT
“the material nature of a handmade piece of animation” - the way you talk about materiality’s effect upon aesthetics here is so great.
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After years of working on this, I’ve finally collected every title issued by Odyssey Books, the Black owned small press founded by Leticia Peoples to publish Black romances in the era before Arabesque.
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Can't get over this 1667 natural history work, which discusses and categorizes demons and witches as well as giraffes and armadillos.
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A word on readers and collectors:
Book lovers who are big readers and book lovers who collect books are two different demographics. They can often overlap, but they don’t necessarily.
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One of my favorite items in the new
@typepunchmatrix
catalogue is an elaborate Victorian scrapbook in the form of a sequential tour of a house.
Literally every one of us here fell in love with this book.
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One problem about my field is that sometimes you get REALLY EXCITED about a thing — but you can’t talk about it yet because it’s up at auction and you don’t want to encourage competition 🤐
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Tolkien illustrated the first edition of The Hobbit (1937) himself. The first impression has his brilliant blue and green dust jacket design. But it’s only in the second impression that you get more interior images in color: here’s Smaug from the second impression.
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It's official: I've sold my second book, JANE AUSTEN'S BOOKSHELF, to Simon & Schuster. It's featured as the "Deal of the Day" on Publisher's Marketplace today, & obviously I couldn't be more thrilled. I can't wait to tell you about my journey getting to know these authors.
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This account of an English high society scandal was printed in 1810, just before the Regency era — and someone has quite literally spilled the tea on it. I am in love.
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Hot take: we can celebrate Gutenberg’s specific invention and contributions to the history of print without erasing or minimizing the hundreds of years of earlier print history in East Asia. Let’s do that.
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This Saturday:
I’m speaking at Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library on all the interesting ways Gen Z is getting into book collecting.
Event is 1pm EST, co-hosted by the Baltimore Bibliophiles. Event link in subsequent tweet.
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Today’s rare book cataloguing involves the coolest folding frontispiece I’ve run across in some time:
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Doing a final inventory before sending this collection of the first 1500 titles in Harlequin Presents to its new institutional home. This is my third time counting all 1500 to make sure I didn’t miss any…
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Sometimes when I photograph a rare book, I can feel it giving all its attitude to the camera. Case in point, this first edition of The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, 1749.
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Feeling punchy so I’ll divulge one of my pet peeves that’s regularly done even by people I respect: referring to famous literary men by their last name while referring to famous literary women by their first.
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I’ve seen plenty of tree calf bindings in my day — that’s the design here, where the boards are stained in a tree-like pattern — but I have never seen a RED ONE before!
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Glad I woke up early to bid at a London auction and lose on everything.
Everything!!
You are all my enemies
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I know my Sherlockian bias is showing, but I will never not love the design of the binding on the 1902 first edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
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Interested in the history of romance, or in romance collecting? My catalogue on the Romance Novel in English is now available for free online:
It contains 100 lots of romances from 1769 to 1999, forming a collection earmarked for an institution.
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Our rare book company is a bit different from what you normally see in that, of the six of us here, only one is a man. And on our About page, I am listed first as co-founder. So when you send us an email addressed by name to the only man at this company, we see you.
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Yesterday I saw someone on here defend a claim that romance is “trashy” because they dislike the prose they’ve seen — “That kind of gooey, over explained, underexplored way of describing things. Also the lack of external conflict” — and ma’am, you’ve just described Henry James.
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Sigh. I’m tired of the narrative that the internet was “cataclysmic” for the rare book trade. Yes, it changed everything dramatically. But many of the changes have been positive. For one, it’s easier than it has ever been to become a collector. This isn’t so black and white.
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I should have given a warning in the
@FatedMates
episode about collecting romance — collecting is addictive! In it I talk about $10 as my spending limit for adding to my Ace gothic romances collection. I’d been very good about that… Until I found the original cover art for one.
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Today I’m thinking about one of the most important skills a rare book dealer can possess: knowing the difference between what’s new/unusual to them and what’s legitimately rare.
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I just spelled my own last name wrong in an email sign off, in case you’d like to know how my morning is going.
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Still life of a rare book dealer’s desk — working from home with young kids around.
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Romancelandia: I’ve decided. This is happening.
Do you collect vintage and rare romance books?
I’ve made a dedicated mailing list just for all the great romance first editions that are passing through the shop
@typepunchmatrix
.
(Signup link in next tweet)
Romancelandia: if I were to create a special mailing list at my rare book company
@typepunchmatrix
just for announcing the availability of newly acquired vintage and rare romance books, you would sign up?
Emails would be once a month at most. Price points prolly $15 and up.
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One of the best parts of being an adult for me has been learning to embrace unabashedly the things I like — regardless of whether they seem “boring” to someone else.
as you approach your 30s it’s very very important that you acquire a “boring” interest that will develop into an obsession as you age. local water policy, shipping containers, composting, amateur geology, metal detectors, collecting old coins
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Recently I’ve had a handful of conversations with rare book people at institutions that have made me realize that the culture and etiquette of the rare book trade isn’t always well communicated to others. Here are a couple helpful tidbits to know for book fairs.
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Lap swimming when it’s cold outdoors in a heated pool is one of my new favorite things. No one is more surprised by this than I am.
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The first time readers in English saw Don Quixote tilting at windmills: this is the 1687 first illustrated edition of Cervantes’s book in English.
#OnMyDeskToday
(and on its way to a new home)
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This ... this snowman from 1920 is wielding a knife. Vintage children’s books, man.
Illustrated by Grace Drayton.
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Telling another rare book dealer your price code is like telling someone in Earthsea your true name.
fun fact, a lot of rare booksellers will pencil their books with the price they bought it for in a personal cipher so that they can check their margin at a glance but so no-one else will be able to figure out how much profit they are making
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A surprising number of angry responses on a TikTok of mine that spoiled part of the ending for an 1820 gothic novel and, ok, my bad — but I must say that it’s fun to see people getting worked up about a book they hadn’t heard of until 2 min earlier
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Red flags when working with a rare book dealer you don’t know, especially for an expensive books, a thread.
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Oof. It’s one of my favorite things when a book gets a stranglehold on me. Rushing home from work to read it. Sneaking in five more minutes over coffee. I will not be free until I finish it.
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When people wear white gloves to handle rare books. Not actually best practice for printed books, friends.
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There’s a librarian I follow on here who consistently asks for recs with very specific parameters — and every time, inevitably, the responses are filled with suggestions that patently do not meet those parameters. I have so much respect for that level of endurance.
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Listening to the Smiths while cataloguing first edition Edward Gorey books may be peak October me.
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The cover image on this book published in 1905 depicts a telephone with a cord that goes down to hell.
#bookcovers
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Just LOOK at this great headpiece illustrating the first chapter of a 1964 gothic romance. No credited illustrator, which means time for some digging.
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Doc: So why are you interested in LASIK?
Me, in my head: Because otherwise I’ll be even more screwed if I accidentally time travel…
Me, out loud: Oh, because I’m sick of the maintenance of contacts.
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Delighted by this 1909 proto-steampunk science fiction novella by Kipling, set in a dirigible-filled year 2000.
The binding design is spectacular, but what really does it for me are the FAKE ADS at the rear for sf tech and futuristic book titles.
#sff
#steampunk
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If you’re a book collector (or thinking about becoming one) and you’re concerned about safe home storage and handling, I’ve made an informational page just for you:
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Their excitement about this is giving me LIFE — and the gasp of happiness I gave when they correctly explained that white gloves aren’t best practice!
Unboxing a $8000 actual document from the French Revolution 😳
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I am working on a lecture about Sherlockian collecting. If you are a POC who collects anything Holmes related, I would love to hear from you.
Please feel free to share widely: no collection is too odd/offbeat as long as it relates to Holmes in some way.
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Cotton Mather’s account of the Salem witch trials, first London edition, 1693.
#OnMyDeskToday
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Cycles of rare book social media:
- Random people yell at professionals for not using white gloves
- The internet discovers fore-edge paintings (again)
- New, wrong interpretation of the Voynich ms
- Anglophone internet has to be reminded that Gutenberg didn’t invent print
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Nothing beats browsing in a general antiquarian/secondhand bookshop.
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Come listen to me talk about all the ways I attempt to make super nerdy topics interesting to everyone:
Explore the many ways rare book specialist
@RebeccaRomney
has expanded the reach of rare books into the next generation tomorrow, November 17, at 4:30 p.m. Register here:
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After the pre-holiday move, we are finally starting to feel a bit settled in our new offices
@typepunchmatrix
. The transformation isn’t yet complete, but at least we are beginning to resemble a bookshop again. (Also, that’s Mary Mapes Dodge presiding on the coffee table there.)
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Ok, this is a first for me. This romance cover features a hero on it who is… yawning?
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I’m just going to leave this here.
This hand-colored engraving circa 1778 depicts colonists in New York City toppling of the statue of the King George III after the first public recitation in the city of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 1/7
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On my desk this morning: a 1932 science fiction short story by a Polish woman, Józefa Maria Burdecka, about a trip to Mars.
Great Art Deco cover design by Hanna Kędzierska.
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Me: you can read the book without the dust jacket on, you know.
Him: why would I ever read a naked book?
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Have been on TikTok less than 48 hours and have already received my first “shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?!” comment.
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Portrait of a rare book dealer’s desk. Database open on the right. Pencil, magic rub eraser, & ruler at the front. 4-volume 1769 novel waiting to be collated. Pile of science fiction, mostly paperback originals. And a 1561 medical book in limp vellum on top, with intake sheet.
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Turns out moving a company with 10,000+ rare and collectible books is a lot of work.
@BookstoreMovers
living up to their name helping us in this multi-day move 😅
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The horse from this 1850s chapbook is giving some serious side eye.
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Well this feels seasonably appropriate.
I was going through a box of early 19th century children’s books we acquired and came across … a skeleton praying?
#OnMyDeskToday
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Today I want to give you a tool to check the accuracy of many modern rare book listings. In book collecting today, one of the most common mistakes I see in the listings of inexperienced or avocational rare book dealers is a misunderstanding of what “first edition” means.
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Snapshot of the bookshelf of a 19th century woman of letters: books inscribed to or owned by author and editor Mary Mapes Dodge.
I’ve been putting off dealing with this because I know it’s going to be a deep rabbit hole.
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One of the biggest failures of that recent piece calling people “smug” for keeping their books is that it falls short of asking any interesting questions. Sure, some people brag using books. But •why•? What might that tell us about how we see books’ role in our larger culture?
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This uncorrected proof of Samuel R. Delany’s 1984 novel comes with an internal Bantam letter to the sales force from editor Lou Aronica: “please pass this along to a bookseller who loves science fiction or majestically lyrical prose”
#OnMyDeskToday
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Romance collection in progress. It’s not going to stay this way, I promise. Only for a few minutes. This is pre- final organization — had to document the last moment of true chaos.
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Was searching for a past lecture & newly reminded of this. A new one is like “was she FIRED?! No official statements have been made!” ...Except on my official website, where I say I’m still on the show, & in the latest season, where I appear multiple times. What a weird industry.
Typically I ignore the clickbait articles & videos that appear because of Pawn Stars: they're riddled with verifiable errors & purposely misleading gotchas. (For the record: I wasn't born in Vegas, I have never been fired, I still film on Pawn Stars.) But this one is too funny.
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French science fiction author and illustrator Albert Robida imagines a future New York City in 1925.
#OnMyDeskToday
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WOW nothing like exploring a virtual book fair and seeing that a colleague has straight up plagiarized one of your descriptions for a very rare book, then consciously underpriced you.
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Sometimes I have reason to regret our company policy not to erase prior pencil markings in rare books.
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Scene upon opening a package from a secondhand bookseller, no changes. Difficult to be a condition-sensitive collector of category romances when a bulk order is shipped like this. I miss shop browsing...
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Me: Why do people feel they must request in advance that I pack their expensive purchase securely? Like I wouldn’t? I am a professional!
Also me: *receives 5 packages in a single day with mangled, under padded, over taped, poorly secured material*
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GUESS WHO designed the dust jacket for this stellar 1957 “neo-Gothic” novel? You’ll never guess. (Unless you cheat. Don’t cheat.)
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A dealer posts about books in ‘30s jackets being “fine” — then blocks my biz partner for pointing out they didn’t mention the incredibly salient fact that at least one of them is restored. FYI: it’s unethical not to mention restoration, especially when bragging about condition.
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Sometimes being a working parent means bidding at auction on an 18th c. Italian book on Newton’s theories while sitting in your parked car because the lot came up minutes after dropping your kid off at school.
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@PublishersWkly
Don’t care about Fabio’s opinion even a little bit; do care that not a single cover artist is credited in the article, like Elaine Duillo, who created the cover art for the book shown and captioned as Fabio’s debut.
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Of all the rare books to get delivered to the wrong address, a first edition of Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick is not ideal.
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I’ve decided that my reward for turning in my manuscript to my editor at the end of this month is going to be a replay of Chrono Trigger.
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My small business relies heavily on USPS on a daily basis. Book companies like mine are intimately familiar with the ins and outs of shipping costs and timelines — and the USPS is crucial to our business.
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I have complicated feelings about Anne Rice and her work. But right now all I want to say is that her books broke open my mind as a teenager in a way that was not only formative but — to have become who I am today — absolutely necessary. May she rest in peace.
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Let’s talk about sentimental value vs. market value in rare books. When I tell people that a book they’ve offered me won’t fetch much money on the collectible market, they are often disappointed. Understandable! But I want to praise sentimental value today, not market value.
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For my mutuals who teach: please know that I’m always open to invitations to Zoom with your class if the topic is related to one of my areas of expertise (eg book collecting). As long as it doesn’t require significant advance prep from me, I love doing this!
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Had something of a rough day, so I’m about to sit down to one of my Break Glass In Case Of Emergency books — Alyssa Cole’s How To Find a Princess. Sometimes you gotta put off reading a book you’re excited about so that you have it ready for days like this.
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Cataloging a first edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
describing it as Twain’s fanfic of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur
because I have my own business and no one can stop me
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If you’ve spent much time looking at descriptions of rare books for sale, you’ve probably noticed that the most complicated part is the condition summary. Here’s an insider overview of condition, the most subjective part of a rare book listing.
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Another day; another round of emails destroying people’s dreams.
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Check out this first edition of Ray Bradbury's Illustrated Man in a tattooed binding. We specially commissioned it from artist A. von Hemmersbach.
(This one has already sold, but I had to share it as another favorite item from the new
@typepunchmatrix
catalogue.)
#SFF
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A thread about rare book appraisals, which are much thornier than you might think.
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Another small snowstorm last night. Here, have some sad snowman endpapers from a 1912 German children’s book.
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