By Stephen Crafti
THE AGE, AUSTRALIA
February 13, 2021 —
When rockstar and poet Patti Smith first moved to New York in the late 1960s she worked as a waitress. She also boosted her income by discovering rare books, many of which were on-sold to help establish her artistic career.
At about the same time, Kay Craddock, owner of Kay Craddock-Antiquarian Bookseller, established a family bookstore in Melbourne’s suburban Essendon (now at 156 Collins Street).
The Schoeffer bible, circa 1472, was sold to the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne for $200,000. CREDIT:KAY CRADDOCK ANTIQUARIUN BOOKSELLER.
“When we first opened, the locals didn’t think our venture would last six months,” says Craddock.
More than five decades later, the business now attracts regular customers from all over Australia and overseas.
There is a signed black-and-white photo of Barry Humphries on the wall of the store and Smith, who still maintains a keen interest in rare books, once dropped in to peruse the shelves while on tour.
Craddock’s store covers many decades and subjects, including golf, cars, children’s books and the military. Well-known Australian authors such as Tim Winton and David Malouf can be found, along with a first edition of Patrick White’s Happy Valley in its original dust jacket, priced at $6000.
There are also works by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, with the store stocking 37 volumes, circa 1919, valued at $7500 and a copy of US cartoonist Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie, circa 1935, with a price tag of $950.
However, they are far from some of the top-of-the-line rare books that have passed through Craddock’s fingers. She sold a copy of a bible printed in Mainz in 1472 by Peter Schoeffer, an apprentice to Johann Gutenberg, to the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne in the early 1990s for about $200,000.
Craddock also recalls a time where she was contacted to buy a collection of rare books that once graced the library of Thomas Scott, who emigrated to Australia in 1820 and was assistant to famed pioneer, surveyor and explorer George William Evans.
An 1895 edition of Northanger Abbey.
February 13, 2021 —
When rockstar and poet Patti Smith first moved to New York in the late 1960s she worked as a waitress. She also boosted her income by discovering rare books, many of which were on-sold to help establish her artistic career.
At about the same time, Kay Craddock, owner of Kay Craddock-Antiquarian Bookseller, established a family bookstore in Melbourne’s suburban Essendon (now at 156 Collins Street).
The Schoeffer bible, circa 1472, was sold to the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne for $200,000. CREDIT:KAY CRADDOCK ANTIQUARIUN BOOKSELLER.
“When we first opened, the locals didn’t think our venture would last six months,” says Craddock.
More than five decades later, the business now attracts regular customers from all over Australia and overseas.
There is a signed black-and-white photo of Barry Humphries on the wall of the store and Smith, who still maintains a keen interest in rare books, once dropped in to peruse the shelves while on tour.
Craddock’s store covers many decades and subjects, including golf, cars, children’s books and the military. Well-known Australian authors such as Tim Winton and David Malouf can be found, along with a first edition of Patrick White’s Happy Valley in its original dust jacket, priced at $6000.
There are also works by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, with the store stocking 37 volumes, circa 1919, valued at $7500 and a copy of US cartoonist Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie, circa 1935, with a price tag of $950.
However, they are far from some of the top-of-the-line rare books that have passed through Craddock’s fingers. She sold a copy of a bible printed in Mainz in 1472 by Peter Schoeffer, an apprentice to Johann Gutenberg, to the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne in the early 1990s for about $200,000.
Craddock also recalls a time where she was contacted to buy a collection of rare books that once graced the library of Thomas Scott, who emigrated to Australia in 1820 and was assistant to famed pioneer, surveyor and explorer George William Evans.
An 1895 edition of Northanger Abbey.
CREDIT:CHRISTOPHER BROWNE
Now in the collection of the State Library of Victoria, “on one inside cover there was a skin of a mouse, the species unidentified,” says Craddock, who was delighted these books were in the original “boards”. Whether wood, paste-board or other materials, “boards” provide cover protection.
“It’s not just seeing the original bindings, however simple they are, but importantly, seeing a snapshot of Scott’s time and his interests,” Craddock says.
Emeritus Professor Christopher Browne, who had a career in academic medicine at Monash University, first started collecting rare books as a post-graduate student at Oxford University.
His initial purchase came in the 1970s when he snapped up a first edition of Ian Fleming’s The Man with the Golden Gun for just five pence. The same book is now worth between $500 and $600.
More valuable in his collection of about 1300 books is a first edition of Northanger Abbey, one of Jane Austen’s last books before she died in 1817. In its original “board”, Browne values the book at about $10,000. His oldest book in a series of letters by Cicero from the mid-16th Century published by Aldus Manutius.
“People often make the mistake of thinking that if a book is bound in lustrous leather, with perhaps a coat of arms [many collectors from the 19th Century came from titled families], it’s more valuable,” Browne says. “But this isn’t the case, with many of these books rebound in the 1930s in an art-deco style.”
“The price paid is what people are prepared to pay and how rare it is,” says Browne.
The renowned collector was once contacted by an overseas bookseller to see if he was interested in purchasing a first edition of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – asking price £90,000.
While tempted – he mulled it over for a few weeks – it was eventually sold to another collector.
And what’s the main attraction for Browne in collecting rare books?
“It’s the pleasure of having a great object travel through your hands, whether or not it finally ends up on your bookshelves,” he says.
Stephen Crafti is a specialist in contemporary design, including architecture, furniture, fashion and decorative arts.
Now in the collection of the State Library of Victoria, “on one inside cover there was a skin of a mouse, the species unidentified,” says Craddock, who was delighted these books were in the original “boards”. Whether wood, paste-board or other materials, “boards” provide cover protection.
“It’s not just seeing the original bindings, however simple they are, but importantly, seeing a snapshot of Scott’s time and his interests,” Craddock says.
Emeritus Professor Christopher Browne, who had a career in academic medicine at Monash University, first started collecting rare books as a post-graduate student at Oxford University.
His initial purchase came in the 1970s when he snapped up a first edition of Ian Fleming’s The Man with the Golden Gun for just five pence. The same book is now worth between $500 and $600.
More valuable in his collection of about 1300 books is a first edition of Northanger Abbey, one of Jane Austen’s last books before she died in 1817. In its original “board”, Browne values the book at about $10,000. His oldest book in a series of letters by Cicero from the mid-16th Century published by Aldus Manutius.
“People often make the mistake of thinking that if a book is bound in lustrous leather, with perhaps a coat of arms [many collectors from the 19th Century came from titled families], it’s more valuable,” Browne says. “But this isn’t the case, with many of these books rebound in the 1930s in an art-deco style.”
“The price paid is what people are prepared to pay and how rare it is,” says Browne.
The renowned collector was once contacted by an overseas bookseller to see if he was interested in purchasing a first edition of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – asking price £90,000.
While tempted – he mulled it over for a few weeks – it was eventually sold to another collector.
And what’s the main attraction for Browne in collecting rare books?
“It’s the pleasure of having a great object travel through your hands, whether or not it finally ends up on your bookshelves,” he says.
Stephen Crafti is a specialist in contemporary design, including architecture, furniture, fashion and decorative arts.
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