I have been buying and selling important manuscripts, archives, and historically significant rare books & first editions since the late 1990s. 

In 2000 I co-founded The Manhattan Rare Book Company with a friend and fellow bookseller, Michael DiRuggiero. We worked out of a tiny office in the garment district, and got our clients and sales almost entirely through our website and printed catalogs. In those days selling cheap books online was pretty straightforward, but selling high end material was much more challenging. Fortunately we were young and stubborn so we stuck with it.

 

I think the catalogs were a good idea because they helped reassure collectors that we weren't indifferent to the traditions of bookselling. Our first catalog included a first edition of The Great Gatsby (in the dustjacket) which we sold instantly for $75,000, some first editions by Jane Austen, a first edition of Tolstoi's Voina i Mir, and a 1685 Shakespeare folio which we bought at Sothebys for what was then the highest price ever achieved at auction for that edition. It was a bold gambit but also a beautiful copy which we sold quickly. It felt like we had a decent chance. 

 

As one of the very first high end rare book companies to operate almost entirely online, we got a disproportionate share of newer collectors who were dipping their toes in the water via the internet. This helped get us grow the business and eventually we opened a little gallery in an upscale antiques center in midtown where we could trade books the old fashioned way. It was a fun time. Michael Jackson walked in one day, which for two guys who had been selling books out of the garment district felt like success in and of itself.  Around the same time we sold a copy of Robert Goddard's landmark work on rocketry to Elon Musk's then wife. We felt like we were flying high.

 

The gallery in the antiques center helped with the online sales. A radiologist from Colorado who collected Bibles, Winston Churchill letters, and baseball related material agreed. "It's nice to know I can come punch you in the face if you ever cheat me," he explained calmly. I think he was kidding, but I had no intention of finding out. 

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Violence is rare in the book business. But dealing with collectors can be challenging and also sometimes very rewarding. The more serious collectors are difficult to sell to because they know their way around the market, know how to evaluate pricing, and usually already have well developed collections. But they're also the best to work with. They're the ones who respond to the best material with real excitement and appreciation, and sharing that excitement and appreciation is genuinely fun. Not many people are motivated to spend lots of money on rare books and manuscripts, and when you can bond with someone who is and who shares what you're passionate about, it's very cool.

 

In 2012 Michael and I were itching to roll the dice again to stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing arts and antiques market. We thought a peer-to-peer platform that was more exclusive and upscale than eBay might be a good idea. I remember testing the waters with one collector after another, asking them if they would want to participate in something like that. Most of the collectors we spoke to were curious and enthusiastic, some were strongly enthusiastic and started talking about all the other things they collected -- art, coins, automobiles, and so on. So we built and launched CollectorsFolio, thinking we could start with books and manuscripts and gradually scale it up.

 

Was it a success? No, it was not. But it wasn't exactly a failure either. We did business and, best of all, made contact with lots of collectors we probably couldn't have reached otherwise. But the peer-to-peer part of the plan never really got much traction. We learned that at the high end of the books and manuscripts market handholding and personalized service is paramount. While the peer-to-peer plan gradually petered out. the connections we made remained. In all it turned out to be a high quality mistake.

 

The market for books and manuscripts has evolved rapidly and dramatically since I first started buying and selling more than twenty years ago. I'm not as inclined to list material online as I was in those days. That's because amidst all the change, one thing has remained constant, and that is the thrill of discovering something amazing and important you haven't seen before and didn't even know existed. That never gets old.  -Jeremy