A week or so ago I dragged my book-loving aunt (it runs in the family) to the 42nd Antiquarian book fair in San Francisco. We had a great time browsing all the wares from book dealers around the world. Of course, there were the high-end, super-rare items (Dead Sea Scrolls, Newton's Principia), but there were also moderately-priced first editions of familiar stories. Especially familiar were works by Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Twain. We saw these authors everywhere…seemingly every third stall. It does make you wonder how rare these authors can be.
Despite the hard economic times there was a good-sized crowd and a fair number of collectors/dealers buying. Although we didn’t buy anything ourselves, we did have fun looking. My aunt saw several she remember from her childhood; I saw several I would buy if I had room for them. For the record, the highest price tag we found was on the three quarter-sized scraps of the Dead Sea scrolls which were priced at $275,000. There could have been more expensive items as there were a number of items with no price tag. We didn’t ask about any of these, since obviously its one of those “if you have to ask” deals. My favorite item is pictured down below—an edition of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, bound in asbestos.
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