A potty man: the collecting bug

[callmemadam]

Ransacking my shelves in an attempt to get rid of even more books, I found Collector’s Progress by Stanley W Fisher. This was published in 1957 and is an account of the author’s life as a collector of porcelain. In real life he was a headmaster but seems to have spent every spare minute either fishing or sallying forth on china hunting expeditions; this in spite of having a wife and two children. Though he would have called himself an amateur he amassed (and later sold) two fine collections of porcelain and wrote books and articles on the subject. I enjoyed my second read of it just as much as the first; it’s fascinating to learn about the experts and dealers he met, the collections he examined and above all, the thrill of the chase. He’s quite honest about the desire of every collector to get a bargain by knowing more than other people do.
[Poll #1214638]

So what makes a real collector? I think real collectors are single minded and usually limit their collecting to one area only. They will go without food if necessary to pursue their goal. They can be pretty ruthless. I could obviously never be a real collector. People look at my books and talk about ‘your book collection’ but with the exception of one author it’s really an accumulation. Although I have complete sets of some writers’ books, I’ve picked them up here and there as I found them, rather than actively pursuing them. It’s the same with stamps. I’ve occasionally sought out one to complete a set but on the whole I’m happy to have lots to enjoy, when the sensible thing would be to specialize. Then there’s the question of quality. Your true collector will have only ‘mint in dustwrapper’ first editions of the books he/she wants and stamps/glass/china or whatever only in the best condition.



I always enjoy books which feature antiques or book collecting and I’ve been trying to think of a few. Robert Graves’ Antigua, Penny, Puce, his only light novel, is about sibling rivalry over a stamp. Headlong by Michael Frayn is ‘a question of attribution’. Can anyone suggest more collecting titles?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I think your collection is the more interesting because it's mainly serendipitous finds, Barbara. It's certainly amazing anyway, and I love the way you've housed it! I am only the custodian of a collection and most of that in storage on another confident, but I did bring all the Jane Shaws to Dorset this weekend and whilst loving seeing them all felt niggily discontent - no The Moochers Abroad and spent an anxious moment trying to remember where first of Penny Farthing is stored. One Perfect Rose! Huh!! One Perfect Library, please. Drop me email when you are free for kaffee and kuchen.D

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Hah! Glad to see LJ is working again. Thanks for your kind words about my books. I have all the Penny books but no Moochers or Northmead, so you are several up there.

Will do!

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

I've almost stopped collecting books, mainly because the ones I need are so expensive, and because I've run out of space to collect anything new. I've upgraded to a certain extent, and still do if I spot a bargain, but I'm not that bothered really. But I obviously have the need to collect something, so I've been obsessively buying yarn for the last couple of years. That's outgrowing the space too, I need something new to collect, preferably that won't take up much space. Sadly stamps don't appeal.

My Dad would tell me that I should collect money, he may have a point, given that ebay sales have pretty much dried up. I got an email from abe the other day offering me three months free subscription if I went back to them, I'm thinking about it - at least they don't change their site every five minutes for no apparent reason other than to confuse.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Yes, you get to a level in your field where you can't or won't go on. I still don't have a 1st of The Man with Three Fingers for instance, but I won't pay the going rate for one.

I should have included yarn in the poll!
As for collecting money, how about gold jewellery? small, pretty, portable, gold keeps its value...

eBay's current behaviour is driving me nuts. There was an article in the Telegraph on Saturday headed 'changes to eBay to favour power sellers' and make it less like a car boot sale. That was a come-on, as they said eBay refused to comment and the rest of the article was stuff we already know about how to sell things you don't want. I experimented with the new searching today and it's just awful. Plus, I checked the opt out button and it kept returning me to the new system. When I complained to them originally I said I was thinking of closing my shop because no one would be able to find my items. True.

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

I found a first of Man with Three Fingers in a charity shop once for 50p. With a dj. I sold it almost instantly for £75, but it seems to have gone up since then, should have hung onto it.

Gold's a thought, but I don't really wear it, so I probably couldn't work up too much enthusiasm for collecting. Plus there's not the thrill of the chase that you get with books. I could start collecting old china of the Clarice Cliff variety, but again I have no space to display it.

I'm going to have a good look at abe soon, I just wish you could put more than one photo on there. And unless it's changed it's really fiddly to put photos on at all - you have to upload them separately from the main database, and then they often don't appear for ages, by which point you've missed all the folks looking for newly listed stuff. Of course it may all have changed, I'll have to investigate.

[lethe1]

I think the "real collector" you describe is just one very specific type of collector, not necessarily the only true one. To me a collector is someone who as soon as s/he has acquired more than two of something, sees a potential collection. I believe collecting is only a few steps removed from hoarding, the only difference being it is not considered a disorder and the objects collected are usually valuable (to other collectors — I don't think many people would be willing to pay money for my collection of plastic bags, but even stamps are worthless pieces of paper to the unenlightened).

I (used to) collect anything and everything: stamps, books, coins, music, playing cards, the aforementioned plastic bags, matchboxes, DMC embroidery floss, elephant and other animal figurines, key rings, you name it. I have decided to limit myself because I don't want all this attachment to stuff (of course books and music are so much more than that, each book contains a whole world and music is full of emotion, but the rest are simply inanimate objects). One way I have done this is by moving into a small apartment where I simply do not have the space to accumulate lots of stuff. Another way is not to let my collections grow beyond certain limits: I have a collection of Alice in Wonderland editions, and as soon as the shelf I had assigned for them was full, I stopped buying them.

Your true collector will have only ‘mint in dustwrapper’ first editions of the books he/she wants

I think that is only true for people who see their collection as an investment. Personally, as long as a book is in good condition and the text itself has no markings, I rather like an inscription on the flyleaf or an ex-libris, it adds to the book and makes me wonder about previous owners. I've also never understood the "never removed from box" requirement for Barbie dolls, toy cars and the like. If you can't even enjoy your collection because it is wrapped up in a box and not to be touched, what is the point, apart from the monetary value?


Unfortunately the only book I can think of that features (stamp) collecting is a Dutch classic from the 1920s that, as far as I know, has never been translated into English: Kees de jongen by Theo Thijssen.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting comment. I admire your restraint over Alice and your determination not to let stuff take over. It's being forced on me now that I *have* to move to a smaller house. I should see this as a golden opportunity to find out what I really value and can't bear to be parted from.

Like you, I don't necessarily want everything to be in perfect condition and I find inscriptions and annotations interesting. For instance, I have a book of First World War memoirs which has been annotated in pencil, obviously by someone who had also fought in the trenches and so had first hand knowledge of the subject. With stamps, the modern mania is for mint stamps and unaddressed covers. Apart from new British definitives I collect only postally used stamps: that's what they're for! It's sad that labels have taken over from stamps but of course, some people are now collecting them!

Although I don't look on my books as an investment I do sometimes justify a purchase on the grounds that 'I can always sell it again'.

[lethe1]

Oh, that is tough. I'm wishing you lots of wisdom in the decision-making. Your new house will have a garden, I hope?

That book of memoirs sounds interesting. I don't mind annotations in non-fiction books, only in fiction.

I collect both mint and used stamps, but the used ones are much more fun (soaking them off, pressing them) and, as you say, are the real thing. I don't like the artificiality of first-day covers.
Are labels self-adhesives?

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I wouldn't move anywhere without a garden but it may be tiny.

Ooh, I enjoy all that soaking and fiddling, too. By labels I mean the computer printed ones they use now for almost all parcels and packets. Once upon a time if you got a book sent from Australia, the packet would have nice high value Oz stamps on but now it's just a label. It makes me cross that Royal Mail produces more and more stamp issues every year but very few of them get to be postally used. They're just trying to make money out of collectors but I've given up on them apart from the definitives. It's just too expensive. They are also absolutely terrible at postmarks, which are either missing or horrible, smudged things, unlike the Dutch, Swiss or German ones.

Colecting

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, what memories that brought back, seeing the cover of Stanley W Fisher's book! My mother had this book, along with thousands of others, which I inherited upon her death in 2000. She was a collector insofar as she didn't set out to collect anything in particular, but when she saw something she loved, it was added to her collection. She never spent much because she simply could not afford to, but that didn't prevent her from collecting. To write about what she collected would demand a book in itself, so I will contain myself here to saying that the books she liked best were those, like Stanley Fisher's, which were the autobiogs. (or even biogs.) of collectors, dealers and auctioneers. Favouries were the autobiogs. of Thomas Rohan, a collector/dealer from the 1920s and one of those, Billy Ditt, was the 'autobiog.' of a Chippendale Chair! Another favourite was The Thursday Shop about an antiques shop which was only open on Thursdays! I thought I'd kept the Fisher book, ran up upstairs to where I keep my antiques books but no, it was one which I parted with for I simply could not keep every one of my mother's thousands of books. But I do still have the Rohans and the Thursday Shop and many others. And they now often help me as I write my own monthly antiques column for two magazines. How delighted she would've been to know this.
Margaret Powling

Re: Collecting

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

How interesting. I picked this book up years ago but assumed it was quite an obscure title no one would have heard of! Thanks for mentioning the other books; they sound just the sort I would like.

Collecting a PS

[(Anonymous)]

I forgot your other question ... can readers suggest books which feature collecting? Well, for starters, there's L P Hartley's The Collections.
As well as those books I've mentioned, by Thomas Rohan (which include the faux-autobiog. of a chair, entitled Billy Ditt), and The Thursday Shop (by Anne Summers, and she has nothing to do with a certain kind of shop we find on the high street today!) might I also suggest Antique Dealer by R P Way and The Confessions of An Incurable Collector by Desmond Coke (published in 1928 by Chapman & Hall.
Margaret Powling

Re: Collecting a PS

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I believe there are some good ones about books, as well. 84 Charing Cross Road would come into this category.

Re: Collecting a PS

[(Anonymous)]

Hope you don't mind a further comment on collecting? The Fisher book is quite common and easily available on www.abebooks.co.uk I used to help out in my friends' bookshop (they've since retired, so I don't do this any longer) and this book was always readily available. And yes, 84 Charing Cross Road is a firm favourite of mine and is a reading list in itself! Mind you, a lot of Hanff's reading was a little more highbrow than what I normally cope with! But books on and about books are also favourites of mine, autobiogs. of publishers, for instance. I had several but I had to make way for other books and parted with them, sadly. An Occupation for Gentlemen by Fredric Warburg was one of them. As for books on collecting, I would mention the books by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone (Slightly Chipped and Used and Rare). I also think you might enjoy the Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters (all 6 volumes!) These are the letters of George Lyttelton, father of the late Humph, and publisher Rupert Hart-Davis, father of Adam of TV fame, and journo, Duff. I don't know why these letters of two urbane, erudite English gentlemen appealed to me (written in the 1950s) but they did! Indeed, I found them unputdownable which is something to say for 6 volumes of gentlemanly correspondence! There is also a biog. by Philip Ziegler: Rupert Hart-Davis, Man of Letters.
Margaret Powling

Re: Collecting a PS

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Your comments and hints are welcome, thank you!

Re: Collecting a PS

[(Anonymous)]

The Stanley Fisher book has arrived (via abebooks) and I'm really enjoying reading it. He even mentions the book Antique Dealer by Way, and Thomas Rohan's books such as Old Beautiful (both of which I suggested as further reading.) Also he mentions Lady Charlotte Schreiber whose vast ceramics collection was bequeathed to the V&A (and we saw some of this collection on a visit there several years ago and magnificent it is.) Thank you so much for reminding me of this lovely, entertaining and informative book, Collector's Progress!
Margaret Powling

Re: Collecting a PS

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Glad to have brought back those memories, Margaret!