Join Fine Books & Manuscripts specialist Devon Eastland for a demonstration of bookbinding techniques, restoration treatments and a discussion of approaches to repair with examples. See books from the inside out and bring your questions. Devon has worked in the field of restoration for more than twenty years. Repair a chair and sit down, fix a book and read!… Read More
When I was in college, my husband and I loved going to second-hand bookstores in Harvard Square. One day, we found a book from the 1600s. It was a Latin/Greek lexicon printed in Amsterdam, and it cost $175. With most antiques, if something is from 1850, it’s considered really old. If we had found a painting from the 1600s, it seemed to me that it would be worth a lot more than that! So we bought the book.
I’m an antique book appraiser, so I hear this phrase a lot, maybe eight or ten times a week. However, it doesn’t always inspire the excitement or anticipation that I usually feel at the start of a great antique book hunt. Old books aren’t necessarily rare books.