Christmas Cheer

We it's early in November and the supermarkets are crammed with Christmas stuff. They have us worked out so well.... NOT!

Buying Christmas presents and the Christmas food shop are great fun when you have lots of spare cash but this year the whole world (well perhaps with the exception of Australia) are being very careful with their budgets. Heck it looks like most countries are struggling to manage their budgets in these trying times. :-)

Any how I digress from the book world. Antiquarian books and collectors books are still very popular in 2011/12. Kindle is a threat but not everyone wants to put kindles away in a trunk for the grand children. Prices at auction are still rising and really nice books are appearing much less often these days. Somehow we are managing to keep our heads just above water with a good year of library building. Largest library was 2,100 books for a castle in Scotland and the smallest library was 138 books. Just enough to fill a bookcase. Many people in the UK are just now getting wise to the fact that books are VAT free, a great read and even a long term investment. We all fondly remember books from our childhood and teens and as we get older these books can be quite comforting. What am I saying "I'm dyslexic".

If you have any questions or stories you would like to add please post a comment.

Best wishes and Merry Christmas
Ivan, Ann and Thomas Golden

Golden Books Group

North Devon Natural History 2010

Just saw the following Dragonfly and thought it would be nice to share. Not sure which species it is but it was small and very beautiful.

Trelissick (nr. Truro, Cornwall) Book Fair / 8th May

I will be exhibiting at the Trelissick book fair at the Barn Function Room, Trelissick Gardens, Feock, nr. Truro (TR3 6QL) On Saturday 8th May 2010, 10.30am - 4.00pm. Complimentary tickets are available on request. If you would like to see any of our online items at the fair, please let me know at least 24 hours before. I will be displaying a good selection of leather bound sets, a few scarce and rare antiquarian books and a number of inexpensive (£2 each) reading books. Early risers will get the best choice but all are welcome. Due to illness this is the first fair I have been able to exhibit at for over two years.

Antiquarian leather bound books in 2010

After a very long and bitter winter the seasons are finally changing. The night time temperature is still below 0 but afternoons get to an amazing 8 degrees. Snow drops have all bloomed and the first of our daffodils are starting to think about opening. North Devon is beautiful at this time of year and the roads are relatively clear of caravans.

Antiquarian and collectors books are going well with new orders each day. I have been impressed with the variety of purchases this year. Library building is slowly picking up and is quite strong compared to this time last year. I am just about to complete one of our strangest requests in years (1950's and 1960's) for Readers Digest Condensed Books. Having said that it could be a wise move by our client as Readers Digest have recently stopped printing the books. The earlier titles with Very Good condition dust jackets now sell for up to £40 each online. The main reason being early Ian Flemming titles and other important authors.

We are also building a economics collection/library and Chinese/Middle Eastern and French architecture collection. Two further small libraries are on the horizon.

I have not been keeping an eye on book auction prices as we have had limited funds for re-stocking. Our regular supplies have continued to supply good cross sections of leather bound books which has take the pressure off some what.

Blurridge Farm is currently in the middle of a building project and with a fair wind we hope to be letting out half of our farmhouse (Gentleman's residence as the estate agents like to call it) to visitors in the Fall.

Our son, Thomas, has been doing very well in both local and national maths competitions and we are very proud of him.

Rain Rain Go Away!

After such a lovely June, July has been quite a let down on the weather front. We have ended up waiting 4 weeks for a clear window to make hay (no pun intended) and it looks like it may be a week or two longer for a dry spell.

I heard today that a old species of snake is being re-introduced into Devon. Hope they like wet weather :-( Typically the Lady on Radio Two's morning programme indicated that as she has never seen any snakes in Britain and they probally don't exist. After 10 years in North Devon I can def. say they do. She should try looking under more rocks :-)

Golden Books Group continues to tick over with our regular clients keeping the wolf from the door. We have been busy building an economics library and listing lots more interesting books on the website. The economics section now has over 100 titles.

Some interesting items are due in or may come over the next month. The most interesting of all is a collection of Arthur Conan Doyle letters in connection with a book he contributed to. There seems to be some connection with the occult but it may take a week or two to get more information. The same client has asked us to sell a early English bible that was issued to the Comonwealth in the early 1700's.

Oh some additional news is I have just put a few inexpensive books on ebay which you are more than welcome to browse. Hope this link works:

Ebay

Any coments or personal views welcome.

Ivan Golden
Golden Books Group

North Devon Natural History

We thought visitors to our blog might like to see images of insects birds and animals that visit our farm in North Devon. If you can identify any of the photos or would like to comment, please post.

Probally common and a little pastely in real life.

Very Pretty and again probably common.

Is this a moth or rare butterfly?

What are signed bindings

leather bound books have been signed by their creators for the last 210 years. The reasons for adding your name to a leather binding was initially to identify a higher grade of binding. In the early 19th century this changed to attractive advertising style paper labels. The binders name can be stamped to the edge of the inside cover or around the edge of the fly page . The name is often very small and difficult to identify. During the 19th and early 20th century London bookbinders started to introduce styles to bindings and it is just about possible to identify them even without the binders name.

There are a number of top book binders and these include Hatchards, Relfe, Ramage, Zangorski, Rivière, Bayton, Cedric Chivers, Stoakley, Morrell , Maclehose, Crosscup, Tevor Jones, etc...

A signed binding can increase the value of a book.