Rarest book?

[Dust Jacket Collector]

2 hours ago, barkalotloudly said:

I was just getting ready to come down with my cheque book!! lol!

My wife would probably welcome you with open arms assuming she hadn’t already chucked all the books into a skip.

[barkalotloudly]

it is a such a shame that the dealers who fuelled my interest in the Great War are all departing this world, no internet in those days, a frantic scrabble when the catalouge dropped on the mat 

 

[Dave G]

Peter put several children through university and lived a good life by selling books. Hard to imagine that being possible given the current state of books, though 70 of 100 books apparently sold in less than 24 hour on Turner Donovan's latest catalog. I suspect a relative few of us keep the WWI book sales competitive in the scheme of things. I still have a copy of the Boer War books bibliography, a beautiful work. 

 

 

[barkalotloudly]

2 hours ago, Dave G said:

Peter put several children through university and lived a good life by selling books. Hard to imagine that being possible given the current state of books, though 70 of 100 books apparently sold in less than 24 hour on Turner Donovan's latest catalog. I suspect a relative few of us keep the WWI book sales competitive in the scheme of things. I still have a copy of the Boer War books bibliography, a beautiful work. 

 

 

yes i must confess to making a couple of purchases quality will always sell 

 

[Dust Jacket Collector]

2 hours ago, barkalotloudly said:

yes i must confess to making a couple of purchases quality will always sell 

 

3 are on their way to me.

[Dave G]

Alan, what's it like collecting books from the grave? Does Tom offer discounts to the choir invisible?

[Dust Jacket Collector]

2 hours ago, Dave G said:

Alan, what's it like collecting books from the grave? Does Tom offer discounts to the choir invisible?

I hope to find out one day as it’ll take several lifetimes to get all the books I’m looking for.

I don’t think Tom offers discounts even for the recently undeparted.

[MartH]

19 hours ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Alan, what's it like collecting books from the grave? Does Tom offer discounts to the choir invisible?

 

He does but sometime has trouble delivering since they self combust.

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, MartH said:

 

He does but sometime has trouble delivering since they self combust.

 

Halo overheated ?

[barkalotloudly]

a very enduring thread going back over 13 years i was wondering how did everybody get one chasing their "holy grail" of rare books  over the years and what are your current aspirations? from my own the passing years have allowed me to collect most of what i sought but of course these these have been replaced by further items

Kingsley Darling

Military operations Persia 

Sketches made at Gallipoli

various Indian army histories

and last of all, books i did not know existed!

[Black Maria]

I've still got a few to find and it's always a big moment when you find the book you've been searching years for and never thought you would ever see for sale.

One such book was in the last T.D catalogue ( the Jenkin's Tank memoir ) which ranks alongside the likes of 'Devil in the Drum' and 'Letter from France' for me

as the most elusive.

[barkalotloudly]

9 minutes ago, Black Maria said:

I've still got a few to find and it's always a big moment when you find the book you've been searching years for and never thought you would ever see for sale.

One such book was in the last T.D catalogue ( the Jenkin's Tank memoir ) which ranks alongside the likes of 'Devil in the Drum' and 'Letter from France' for me

as the most elusive.

letters from france chapman? if so seemed to have seen that a couple of times over the last few years

Devil in the drum only once and that i purchased . looked for "soldiers luck" for years until DJ pointed me in the direction of a copy although only printed in 1965 as is "War memoirs" by Davson {very very rarely  seen } 100 copies only i think ?

[Black Maria]

44 minutes ago, barkalotloudly said:

letters from france chapman? if so seemed to have seen that a couple of times over the last few years

Devil in the drum only once and that i purchased . looked for "soldiers luck" for years until DJ pointed me in the direction of a copy although only printed in 1965 as is "War memoirs" by Davson {very very rarely  seen } 100 copies only i think ?

It was the one by Sansom , first saw it mentioned in the 'Nation in Arms' bibliography and it was in my first wants list that I compiled in 2002 . It took me until

2017 to find a copy , i also searched for 'Soldier's Luck' for fifteen or so years until I found one . The Davson was on my list for years and I still remember the

feeling of disappointment when I visited the Military Parade Bookshop and he told me he had recently sold a copy to Tom Donovan ( It sold quickly ! )

 

 

Edited 13 June , 2019 by Black Maria

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I suppose over the years most of the gaps from 13 years ago have been filled. Those remaining are either too expensive - Military Ops. Persia, Owen’s Poems in jacket, H.Q. Tanks - or inexplicably elusive - Order of Battle of Divisions part 3a or Thomson’s Four Months in Italy in Wartime ( to complete my set of Bodley Head’s ‘On Active Service Series’.

Being greedy and wanting books in their jackets there are a few I’ve never seen in some 40 years of collecting :-

Malins ‘How I filmed the War’

Asher’s ‘Nomad under Arms’

Macgill’s ‘Red Horizon’ & Sapper’s ‘The Human Touch’.

The great thing about collecting is the expectation - they might all turn up tomorrow!

[Guest]

Hi, I just finished to read Robert Greene's textbook and it's amazing. It's something I really happy to find, because it's not familiar to any war book I have reed previously. Highly recommend you to read it.

[Black Maria]

On 23/05/2014 at 19:51, Dust Jacket Collector said:

 However I did find one mega rare book which I've been searching for longer than I care to remember - a jacketed copy of A.M.Bown's 'Was it Yesterday', a lightly fictionalised account of his service with the 7th London RFA with whom he won an MC. The jacket is a painting of a shell-pocked battlefield - a most striking image.

Unfortunately i've never been lucky enough to find an original copy yet but i have just come across a 2003 hardback edition with an introduction , maps and

photographs of the author  . It's a privately printed limited edition for friends and family so i doubt that there are too many copies out there .

[Dust Jacket Collector]

1 hour ago, Black Maria said:

Unfortunately i've never been lucky enough to find an original copy yet but i have just come across a 2003 hardback edition with an introduction , maps and

photographs of the author  . It's a privately printed limited edition for friends and family so i doubt that there are too many copies out there .

Interesting. I see there are paperbacks from 2015 available on ABE, but none of your copy. What’s the cover like?

I’m on holiday at the moment but when I get back I’m hoping to find a copy of Stanton Hope’s ‘Richer Dust’ on the mat - a copy of which I’ve never seen in its jacket. Supposed to be one of the best books on Gallipoli. I’ll put a picture on here - it’s a really striking image.

[Black Maria]

17 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Interesting. I see there are paperbacks from 2015 available on ABE, but none of your copy. What’s the cover like?

I’m on holiday at the moment but when I get back I’m hoping to find a copy of Stanton Hope’s ‘Richer Dust’ on the mat - a copy of which I’ve never seen in its jacket. Supposed to be one of the best books on Gallipoli. I’ll put a picture on here - it’s a really striking image.

That's a great find , is it anything like the striking cover of the reprint ? This is also the front cover of my book (laminated boards) and a photo of the author  . I'm afraid my book's cover looks quite boring in comparison 

Edited 8 October , 2019 by Black Maria

[barkalotloudly]

1 hour ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Interesting. I see there are paperbacks from 2015 available on ABE, but none of your copy. What’s the cover like?

I’m on holiday at the moment but when I get back I’m hoping to find a copy of Stanton Hope’s ‘Richer Dust’ on the mat - a copy of which I’ve never seen in its jacket. Supposed to be one of the best books on Gallipoli. I’ll put a picture on here - it’s a really striking image.

purchased a copy of this for next to nothing several years ago but I must admit I di not seem to remember a pictorial dust wrapper I must dig it out

[Dust Jacket Collector]

16 minutes ago, barkalotloudly said:

purchased a copy of this for next to nothing several years ago but I must admit I di not seem to remember a pictorial dust wrapper I must dig it out

Sadly a very long way short of next to nothing, even with a negotiated 20% off! The jacket shows a spectral skull hovering over a group of soldiers.

1 hour ago, Black Maria said:

That's a great find , is it anything like the striking cover of the reprint ? This is also the front cover of my book (laminated boards) and a photo of the author  . I'm afraid my book's cover looks quite boring in comparison 

Good to see the picture of Bown in uniform though.

[Muerrisch]

Slightly oblique to the thread, but it won't stop me.

 

My now decent collection of British Army Manuals/Orders/Regs 1800 to 1940 was in its infancy when I wandered into a very scruffy bookshop in Sussex c. 1990 inhabited by a parrot and an equally scruffy bloke. On the stairs he had a large number of manuals, not yet catalogued or priced. I sat beside them and gulped. Picked out all the Victorian and up to 1918 in my greatest fields of interest, did a mental oversight of my threadbare finances, and offered a cheque of £150 for about 25 books. After a little haggling I paid £175 in folding money by the expedient of asking him to hang on while I went to find my wife, always surprisingly good for readies. [The amounts are indicative ....... not far out, but memory fades]

 

None of the books changes hands for less than about £40 these days.

 

My problem is that the Wants list is now very short, and is comprised of the rarest, by definition. I add about two books a year.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

38 minutes ago, Muerrisch said:

 

My problem is that the Wants list is now very short, and is comprised of the rarest, by definition. I add about two books a year.

Always worth posting a list here. Someone may be able to help you out.

[Muerrisch]

1 minute ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Always worth posting a list here. Someone may be able to help you out.

 

I think I will!

[MartH]

2 hours ago, Muerrisch said:

I add about two books a year.

 

I have just added two, made me very chuffed!

[Dust Jacket Collector]

As promised the jacket to Stanton Hope's 'Richer Dust', published by Jarrolds in 1930. Hope was a Lieutenant in the Drake Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, spending 6 months on the Peninsula before being evacuated on the last night, January 8-9th, 1916. Although fictionalised it's entirely based on his own experiences. I've not yet read it but it's said to be one of the best first-hand accounts of the Campaign. Although 'Barkalotloudly' has a copy,  it's the first I've ever seen in it's jacket. The artist seems to be one Nat Long.