Stepping into the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, one could find their fancy in any of the given booths. Located at the Park Avenue Armory between 66th and 67th street (conveniently near Hunter College), the fair took place on March 8th-11th and brought many patrons to the venue. The demographic wasn’t limited to your traditional antiquarian book buyer, but included students and people who simply have a fascination with antiquarian books and history.
“We keep a fresh stock, of what’s new, what’s interesting,” said one bookseller, Brian Kalbrenner of James Cummins booksellers. There were so many different collectors there that upon being asked what kind of specialty the antiquarian book fair had, Mr. Kalbrenner replied, “there’s just all different types.” I asked him to pull out a set of books- one that was particularly cheap ($4,000 dollars) by antiquarian book fair standards, and asked why it was priced so high. I was intrigued by the cover, which showcased a book of lithographs by Mark Chagalle published in the early 1950’s. Lithographs is a method of engraving where one draws an image on a stone, presses a paper on to it, then paints it. The reason he said for pricing something so beautiful at such a low price? “It’s not our specialty, and it’s not an uncommon set.”
Other booths included manuscripts with the Cyrillic, Russian alphabet, Chinese scripts, Hebrew scripts, and others with beautiful artwork (inside and on the book). The Antiquarian Book Fair indeed did have something for everyone; for the artists, the collectors, the grammatologists, anthropologists, historians, theologians- everyone!
