Options
Question for the numismatic bibliophile: What is your preferred method of marking your books?
numisma
Posts: 3,877 ✭✭✭✭
For your library, do you use a personalized rubber stamp or do you prefer an embosser? Do you handwrite your name? Or do you prefer to not mark your books?
0
Comments
<< <i>This sounds like a question for Longacre or Dentuck, not the unwashed masses.
The word is out that M. Longacre is collecting Pandas---if he ain't unwashed yet, he's gettin there mighty fast.
LOL! The hoi polloi win again! Co-opting a gentleman of Mr. L's stature was surely no small acomplishment
I write the price paid, and maybe the purchase date in pencil lightly on the inside back cover or last leaf page at the top or bottom.
Nothing else.
Krueger
K
People who mark books should stand around the coin doctor firing squad to catch stray bullets.
Ask me what I really think
marking?
small initial, deep inside fold of book, birthyear page.
<< <i>This sounds like a question for Longacre or Dentuck, not the unwashed masses.
So true.
When I was in law school, I had a trusts and estates professor who had to be older than dirt. Some punk law student was in the class in the front row, and had highlighted various parts of the case book. In fact, he was using the highlighter in class. Like it was yesterday, I remember this aged professor picking up this guy's book, snatching the highlighter out of his hand, and holding it up in front of the class and announcing, "a highlighter is not a tool of a lawyer. You should never write in your books."
To this day, I never write in any book that I own, other than putting the date on the inside front cover (I am not sure why I do this, though).
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
How 'bout them Pandas?
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
<< <i>Ha! Smoked him out.
How 'bout them Pandas?
As a gentleman, Longacre will simply slap your cheek with a leather glove the next time I see you, rather than responding to your comment.
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Dick Johnson summed it up best - your best research resource is your own library.
Thank you for the replies, even the ones suggesting urine as a means of marking my books.
The reason that I ask is that my library is now easily accessible by other numismatists and I just know from experience that books, when borrowed, are sometimes inadvertently forgotten in another part of a building. Just thinking of a way to help keep track of my library. Historically, I have rarely marked in my books. The exception would be to correct errors in something like an Overton or Browning, and even then I tend to leave notes on smaller paper or note the changes in soft lead.
However, I have purchased many books at auction over the years, and some of them are either stamped "Library of John Doe" in ink, or embossed with similar verbiage. I am just having a hard time convincing myself that I should go to such extremes.
For your library, do you use a personalized rubber stamp or do you prefer an embosser? Do you handwrite your name? Or do you prefer to not mark your books?
More than 30 years ago I had bookplates made and these are still being used.
Denga
<< <i>"a highlighter is not a tool of a lawyer. You should never write in your books." >>
You should photocopy individual pages and bill your clients for them, instead.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
<< <i>
<< <i>Ha! Smoked him out.
How 'bout them Pandas?
As a gentleman, Longacre will simply slap your cheek with a leather glove the next time I see you, rather than responding to your comment.
Then I shall get in a preemptive strike.
As a member of the unwashed masses, I wouldn't think of using a leather glove---them's for Michael-Jackson-types.
<< <i>Not only do I write in mine, sometimes I take pages out of several different ones to combine into customized references. >>
What does your library look like in general?
I have a few industry standards and a few I doubt very many here have heard of.
It's probably best not to write in them, and if so, in pencil. I prefer the used reference books I buy to be mark free if possible.
Them become a little crustier each time I retrieve them
Having said that, I do not write in any of my books. My copy of the Logan/McCloskey half dime book is filled with post-it notes, but I have never written in it. For the most important books in my library (ones which cover my specific area of interest and to which I refer often) I typically have two copies - one pristine copy on the library shelf, and another field copy.
I have enjoyed collecting a very few books from the libraries of other respected numismatists, which I could not do if they were not so identified.
Having handled thousands of auction catalogs, I've seen quite a few that are marked. My favorite? the large bold "Charles L. Ruby" in cursive on the front cover. My least favorite? the black ink stamp "from the library of Remy Bourne".
I don't mark anyting in the publications in my library, except notes and prices realized when I attend an auction. However, I always have another clean copy of those sales as well.
The reason why I don't mark up my library is because I got so annoyed seeing "Remy Bourne" inkstamps on the inside covers of scarce catalogues when he was doing mail bid sales.
The ANA library uses multiple inkstamps to the point of taking away collector value.
It should be noted that priced and named auction sales from the 19th century are desired items in anyone's collection. In several cases, the owner wrote his name of the front cover. If they later consigned their collection, it adds a little to the desirability and helps to verify pedigrees.
Nowadays, we don't have names of consignors and the material offered in anybody's auction is not necessarily from thhe consignor anyway.
Lot slips are wonderful, and should accompany any items that were purchased at auction. However, they are easily lost.
In any event, I don't have the time to write my name in all of the pieces in my library; and I don't write anything in the items I sell either.
To each his or her own, but please, don't mess things up.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
To answer that (unasked) question: I use a Post-It note, pressing it onto the underside of my smoking jacket to take off the excess "gum," and then stick it to the book page. I only do this with books that aren't brittle with age or printed on very thin paper.
To mark my name, if it's a personal book I use a light pencil on the inside endpaper, title page, or half-title page.
If it's a company book and I don't want it to "walk away" and get lost in the Editorial Department --- they're notorious! --- I use a heavy rubber stamp that says
WHITMAN PUBLISHING, LLC
DENNIS TUCKER, PUBLISHER
Collecting:
Conder tokens
19th & 20th Century coins from Great Britain and the Realm
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
WHITMAN PUBLISHING, LLC
DENNIS TUCKER, PUBLISHER
Dennis - you omitted the line on the stamp that says: ON PAIN OF DEATH
<< <i>Dennis - you omitted the line on the stamp that says: ON PAIN OF DEATH >>
I think in most companies that would just encourage even more copies to "walk away"