Rare Book Auction Recap

2009 July 2
by Pazzo Tom

The plan here is to rundown the auction from June 30 out in Northampton based on my pithy and sometimes impenetrable notes in the auction catalog. In deference to the kids out there, I will try to keep it PG-13. Some of my condition notes get a little florid.:

The Auction.

Picked up a set of Ingoldsby Legends - 1st, 2nd and 3rd Series - in Riviere bindings. Thomas Ingoldsby (a.k.a. Harris Barham) wrote some terribly popular legends, including the Jackdaw of Rheims, that no one cares about, currently. These are pretty nice looking though, and bad economies are good for legends. That’s just common sense.

A beat to hell (cover detached, library markings) copy of the “First Complete Bible Printed in Hawaii” (in Hawaiian) went for $3200, in range. It says there were only 500 printed, but that seems like quite a few giant 4to bibles in Hawaiian, in 1843.

Picked up a complete set, in original wraps, of Ambrose Bierce’s “Grizzly Papers” (written as Ursus) from Bret Harte’s Overland Monthly. This was a 5 part series of philosophical ruminations by Bierce on a variety of topics. They are noted for their seriousness of purpose compared to his other writings of the period, though “If you find a man starving the least you can do is loan him your umbrella” and “There is not a more erroneous belief than that one good turn deserves another. By repaying a kindness you reduce it to the level of barter.” are both found here.

Grizzle Papers

4 Richard Burton books all went in range - including the notably rare Sindh for $3200. We picked up a Letters from the Battle-Fields of Paraguay.

As usual I couldn’t resist and bought a couple giant things that no one but me wanted to carry out to their car. I’d call this a strategy except that it’s more a compulsion - a mixture of my Scottish love of a bargain and a tendency to discount how heavy things are. This time it was a 24 volume set of “Oriental Series” and a set of 8 portfolios of Modern (1884) Painters in a ridiculous, silk lined, wooden box. Had to have it.

Signed Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October $450!

The cataloger missed or ignored the 1774 book with Sir Richard Burton’s bookplate and library marks, but my colleagues regrettably didn’t.

First American of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities went way below estimate ($4-6,000) at $1800. It was a little banged up, but…

A couple of great pre-1400 deeds in various Old English dialects went for more than I would have liked, and just over estimates of 200-300.

Someone bought a biography of Oliver Cromwell for $250 - we watch for people buying books about people like Cromwell, Stalin, Pinochet and put them on the list. Don’t think we don’t notice.

A nice 4to first of Genet’s Querelle de Brest that I REALLY wanted to buy went over range for $550.

I bought something about the Earl of Selkirk and the Red River. Those crazy Earls!

A program and menu from the “Round the World” Zeppelin flight signed by a ton of borderline famous people attracted some interest, but I missed what it sold for because I was wondering what to do about the aforementioned giant wooden box of Modern Painters that was up next.

A crazy 1902 edition of Frank Johnson’s Forest, Lake and River. The Fishes of New England, with this absurd extra illustrated 3′ x 4′ portfolio bound in burlap with sinkers attached to it that held 12 lithographs. Silliest thing I’ve ever seen sell for $9500 (high end of range).

Beat up London first of Ulysses went for $650.

Bought a first English edition of Kant’s Critick of Pure Reason (London, 1838) when it met a wall of indifference. Seems important to me, but I’ve been wrong on philosophy before (meet our first American edition of Rousseau’s Dissertation on Political Economy that I can’t rid myself of).

Lavater’s great book, Essays on Physiognomy (I mention it like I’d ever heard of it before Tuesday) went over range at $1800. It has a couple William Blake plates and analyzes the appearance of George Washington, Ben Franklin, and others.

Interesting philosophical manuscript from 1706 went over range for $325. When I say interesting, I mean theoretically interesting. My two years of C+ Latin weren’t doing the trick.

As usual a photo album went for 8x the estimate.

A letter from Ezra Pound about Mussolini went for $1700 after I had put the over under at $450 just a couple of days ago (via Twitter).

Northwest passage and arctic travel books seemed to do ok or better.

I think I bought something called The History of the Absorbent System which seems like a weird thing to do. What I definitely bought was a book on rural improvements (1796) which should have been called How to Build Roman Revival Outhouses, Cattle Sheds that look like Norman Castles and other Necessities. Great book.

Cattle Shed

Twain went pretty well. A Huck Finn of uncertain bibliographical priority went below range but still for $2700, and I picked up a Following the Equator for a decent price, but he was ok, overall. Mostly the estimates just seemed a little high. My only problem with Twain is that he was SO popular and has stayed so popular, that even a mild flagging of popularity and you could end up with a ton of extra supply out there. The print runs of some his his late works - that often still sell for big prices - had to have been huge. Case in point: A lovely 50 volume set of Thackeray, in full leather, from Eugene Field’s library that were estimated at $1500 - $2500 couldn’t find a bidder at $500 and got passed. Thackeray used to be popular too.

I bought a second edition of Virgil’s Aeneid translated into Scots (1710) - some people looked at me funny, but I’d do it again in a second.

A crappy copy of the First Edition (third state) of Candide went way over range, but still only $600. Doesn’t Candide seem like one of those books that a first anything would start at $5000? Weird.

I bought two leaves from a 1488 edition of “The Golden Legend”. I’m usually against this sort of thing, but they were pretty great looking.

Legenda Aurea 1488

A copy of Isaac Ware’s A Complete Body of Architecture
that had apparently been dragged behind someone’s car went over range at $1200.

A set of Whitman’s in dirty linen jackets that were obscuring the fact that they were bound in pristine 1/4 blindstamped vellum, went too high for me as, apparently, someone else looked under the jackets as well.

Finally, a dual language Welsh/Latin - in parallel - of a book by William Wotton (a language scholar mocked by Swift in Battle of the Books) from 1730 went for $525 which was too much for me no matter how well it would have gone with my Scots book.

As soon as Brian gets back from the Near East we’ll Pazzo TV some of these.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-26

2009 June 26
tags:
by Pazzo Tom
  • The King is open next door - place looks great, good falafel, we’re excited for lamb kabobs and kibbeh! #
  • The Hunter by Richard Stark and The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi #fridayreads #
  • Irish Sports Page is online! RT @EliseBlackwell If you like obituaries, @obitmag is now on twitter. (via @fadetheory) #
  • All books with Sun, sunshine in title 50% off tomorrow. Password is soggy. #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-19

2009 June 19
tags:
by Pazzo Tom

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What to do with all this herring…Baza!

2009 June 14
by Pazzo Tom

I accidentally found a great Eastern European grocery store in Newton this morning. It’s on a side street just off Needham Ave. in the Newton/Needham nexus (near the Mobile Book Fair) a block down from Filene’s basement. It’s big enough that you could do all your shopping there, about the size of a Trader Joes or Village Market in Rozzie.

Stand outs are the selection of herrings, smoked, dried, salted, and the salamis. I’ve certainly seen impressive arrays of salamis before - hanging from the rafters in salami enthusiasts basements or overhead in fancy meat markets, but here they are neatly arranged in the deli cabinet with their English names and prices easily visible (which can be a problem at other markets for those of us who learned all their Russian from watching A Fish Called Wanda). There’s also a nice selection of Czech, Polish and Lithuanian beers and a variety of black breads from Lithuania and Russia.

In addition to the standout salami collection, there is an intriguing selection of hams and bacons (largely special ordered from delis in Chicago, Queens and Brooklyn) and their own turkey and roast beef. The roast beef and the Moscow Summer Salami that I got were big winners - the salami had the slight afterfunk of genuineness, and was delicious on some Armenian flat bread that I somewhat randomly picked up. The regular meats had some great specials as well as moderately priced lamb (including some marinated kabobs that looked suspiciously like the Upstate NY specialty, spiedies, but probably aren’t) and an array or Chinese marinated pork and chicken (??? but they looked pretty good - like those inexplicably red boneless spareribs) as well as your staples (93% ground beef and boneless chicken breasts were both $1.99, so you’re not going to trash your food budget over there.)

Bulk candies, confections, borscht, veal brains - you could really do some damage. And they almost have a website. Head on over to Baza!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-12

2009 June 12
tags:
by Pazzo Tom

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Pazzo in the News

2009 June 11
by Pazzo Tom

We just noticed the article on Seek and Pazzo Books in the West Roxbury Transcript with has this bit of wisdom:

What were your thoughts when you found out that Seek Books was opening a few blocks away?

· Brian: We were pretty happy about it. A lot of people assume there would be some animosity, but there’s not.

· Tom: It’s not like two nude bookstores, which would be a problem.

Not a problem for me, I would hasten to add, but some people find this sort of thing problematic. I mean, one nude bookstore, sure, but two?

I’m also pretty fond of the article’s ending:

What are you reading right now?

· Tom: I’m reading “2666” by Robert Bolano. It’s sort of a literary mystery. And I read A LOT (emphasis my own) of Renaissance cookery.
· Brian: I’m reading “The Faerie Queene” by Spenser

Because it doesn’t make us seem, like, weird or anything.

Brian

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-05

2009 June 5
tags:
by Pazzo Tom

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Menino Ribbon Cutting, Proust

2009 May 30
by Pazzo Tom

The mayor will be starting at Seek Books and moving along Centre St. this afternoon cutting ribbons, with stops at Pazzo, Skara, the new used clothing store, maybe Boomerang, etc. Should be here around 4ish, though who knows. We’ll be serving some madeleines and tea that would make Proust remember something ASTOUNDING. Ou sont les tea biscuits d’antan? Right here, pal.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-29

2009 May 29
tags:
by Pazzo Tom
  • Check out the Boston Book Co. in JP, they’re nice and have lovely books. #
  • Making the pillory seem cool for over 300 years. http://tinyurl.com/qrbghn #
  • is it really a hot-dog bun if unsliced? Isn’t it just hot-dog bun shaped? #
  • RT @Annaleen Can zombies be sexy? Yes they can. http://bit.ly/ChW87 #

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Jimmies and El Chavo

2009 May 28
by Pazzo Tom

The warmish weather has gotten me wandering around a bit and in the past week I hit the new ice cream shop, Jimmies, on Corinth and El Chavo at 4254 Washington, a few doors down from our old digs. Jimmies wasn’t quite going full speed yet (they only had normal size, not foot long, dogs), but their everything dog was delicious, if gone a little quickly for $4, and their homemade relish is delicious. Typically I would recoil at the very idea of mango relish for my dog, but for some reason I took the plunge and, though it could use a little heat to go with the sweet, it was quite good. The foot longs and soft serve are on the way, so I’ll be back.

El Chavo has a nice selection of chorizos, cheeses and tortillas up front, as well as some surprisingly nice looking tomatillos, poblanos and prickly pears. The luchador busts in front are a nice greeting, and he’s done some nice work spiffing up what could have been a somewhat antiseptic space. There’s a reasonable selection of dried spices and canned and bottled sauces (I bought a nice jug of red chile hot sauce that was vinegarly piquant with nice heat and depth and broad appeal), and if, as talking to the owner (who seems like a great guy) suggests, it’s a work in progress, it’s a fantastic start. What he definitely nailed was the great dichotomy between the natural (chiles, cheeses, dried spices) and the utterly fabricated - things the likes of which that you haven’t been able to find on U.S. shelves in most of the country since the late 1970’s - simulated chocolate with crunchy polymer sprinkles, super sweet fragments with caramelesque coating, day-glo drinks of every description - I bought some green apple soda that definitely emerged fully formed from a Guadalajara test tube. Delicious and preternaturally tangy!

I urge you to check it out - grab some burrito perfect tortillas, try the canned chipotles, the refried black beans, or a nice jar of mole.

Spanish bindings

2009 May 22
by Pazzo Tom

We picked up a few Spanish books the other day, a number in some fine, slightly anachronistic bindings (Spanish bindings tend to look like French bindings from 50-100 before). The famously anti-semitic Inquisition history Historia de Los Reyes Catolicos by Bernaldez is a particular stunner.

Historia

Carta Cardenal Cisneros

The last is an especially nice example of why this chemically treated leather is called “tree calf”.

Tree Calf

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-22

2009 May 22
tags:
by Pazzo Tom
  • We’ve added a recommended and an unrecommended shelf - we’ll see which proves more popular. #
  • Unrecommended takes an early 1-0 lead with a surprising Anna Karenina sale. #
  • Mary Poppins makes it 1-1 #
  • We’ll be closed Tuesday afternoon - going to an auction momentarily. #
  • Got some lovely books at the auction yesterday including a pile of Harbingers, the Brook Farm Fourierist newspaper. #
  • Picked up a copy of West’s Sermon of “undoubted right to throw off the yoke, and to assert their liberty” fame; May 29 1776 #

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Pazzo TV - Episode 4

2009 May 16
by Pazzo Tom

We were shooting for more pictures and less commentary to see how that went, but it might just seem like we didn’t have much to say.

Mention Pazzo TV via email/phone/in person and get a genuine Pazzo T-Shirt for just $9!

T-Shirt

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-15

2009 May 15
tags:
by Pazzo Tom
  • RT @fantagraphics Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 by @MKupperman. Snake ‘N’ Bacon! http://www.fantagraphics.com/thrizzlevol1 #
  • 20% off for all Mother’s 30% if you you’re a Mom Mom. Just say Mom or Mom Mom to Brian and he’ll take care of you. #
  • Arranging furniture for printing is more complicated than you’d think. #
  • Piles of art books going out on the carts tomorrow - at least 8 stone worth. #
  • We need to set up a stall at the train station, maybe get my two year old to staff it. #
  • Now where’s that book? RT @mbattles Urge of the Letter, by making it a tumblelog http://matthewbattles.tumblr.com #
  • Ayn Rand and Phil Donahue - Rand likes Charlie’s Angels! Thanks Wu! http://tinyurl.com/38g6j5 #

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Bay Sweets

2009 May 14
by Pazzo Tom

Stung by Bob’s/Droubi’s cessation of pita making last year and Samia’s closure , I’ve finally branched out and tried Bay Sweets (née Bayeh Market) on Spring St. in West Roxbury (which even has their menu online) and was more than pleasantly surprised. They’ve got a nice selection of semi-local (Providence which beats Canada) pitas in both the thick and houmous perfect variety and the thin but durable roll me a falafel type, plus all your de rigeur Lebanese grocery items (it also has that appealing half emptiness as if someone could swoop in at any moment and purchase all the torshi meshakel). The bakery has a nice variety of reasonably priced, baked on the premises items, but the biggest difference is that, in lieu of the produce section, they’ll make you a sandwich.

They’ve also got the falafel mix I’ve been looking for my whole life - modestly homogeneous with enough grit to know you’re serious, but none of those giant pieces of bulghur or gravel that have always haunted my history with grocery falafel. I will post further suggestions as I consume them, but in the meantime, why not buy some pickled turnips? They’re delicious.

Bay Sweets is at 120 Spring St. which is sort of between the bookstore and the Charles River; just past Shaw’s on the opposite side of the street before you get to Kalambar Dune.

West Roxbury Rundown

2009 May 8
by Pazzo Tom

Seek Books is open up the street at 1747 - lovely little shop, great ambiance and a nice selection of SF, Fantasy and Horror including piles of hard to find authors like PKD, Michael Moorcock, Lovecraft, Varley, Delany, and others. Hurry over and get a free DVD including the original Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price.

Samia’s is regrettably no more, but work appears to be moving along in the reconstruction into Shawarma King. We were a bit concerned yesterday when they had a Stop Work on the window but it’s moving along and new windows appear to have gone in today.

I drove past Skara and they don’t look open but they got rid of the pick up window. Bummer.

Boomerang appears on track.

The new Martial Arts Studio (from Corinth next to the Jax in Rozzie) is opening this month.

Family Dollar store professes to be unconcerned with potential competition from the Family Dollar Store in Roslindale.

Two weeks until the cherry lime Rickey wars launch. Last year things got ugly when Iscream undercut Sugar’s prices by 11 cents while upping the lime ante considerably.

If I’m missing anything drop me a line.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-08

2009 May 8
tags:
by Pazzo Tom
  • Pretty great online exhibit of fore-edge paintings at the BPL http://foreedge.bpl.org/ #
  • Repeated lying on facebook quizzes to generate intriguing results #digitaldsm #
  • One free heroic couplet with every $25 purchase. #
  • Seek Books is open up the street and well stocked - lovely shop filled with Lovecraft, PKD, Moorcock et al. #

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When Men were Men and Paperbacks Rocked (and cost a quarter)

2009 May 5
by Pazzo Tom

A veritable deluge of great pocket book cover art has been unearthed over at hilobrow, the brain child of local intellectual mutineers Matthew Battles and Joshua Glenn. The theme of the collection is highbrow (or, in the case of Graham Greene and a few others, things that have since become highbrow) works of literature with decidedly lowbrow cover art. We should track down a hundred of these and have a show at the shop - we could serve Fourme d’Ambert and Schlitz.

Orwell hilo

Pazzo TV Episode 3

2009 May 2
by Pazzo Tom

We’d intended to make this one a little tighter and shorter which probably accounts for how it sort of rambles aimlessly in parts. Still, where else can you get incisive commentary on 6 rare books in less than 10 minutes?

John Smith Dye’s book is “History of the Plots and Crimes of the Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America” and is a singular achievement. He also invented the first counterfeit bill detector - Dye’s Bank Note Plate Delineator.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-01

2009 May 1
tags:
by Pazzo Tom
  • Closing to go to an auction, be open tomorrow. #
  • Pencils never had lead in them. #
  • Isaiah Thomas fails to mention Mathew Carey in his History of Printing in America - Finotti says he just doesn’t like Catholics. #

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