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NEWS & VIEWS

ANTIQUARIAN BY NAME...

ABA celebrates 100 years The Olympia Book Fair this June takes on the added guise of a celebration as its organisers, the ABA, mark their centenary. Founded in 1906, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association is the oldest professional body of its kind in the world. Membership is not straightforward. As Paul Minet, President 1998-2000 says, “If they are retail shops their stock will meet certain standards and their service, whether in selling books or dealing with potential sellers, will aspire to the highest personal and professional behaviour. Dealers, to acquire membership, must know their trade, have a very thorough knowledge indeed of their speciality (and most members are now specialists) and also have a reasonable reference library to complement their knowledge.” In response to members’ interests, emphasis on ‘antiquarian’ has been downplayed to accommodate ‘collectable’ in general. “We recognise that the collector of Enid Blyton, Ian Fleming or

Alexander Kent is just as valid as the more traditional connoisseur of 17th- or 18th-century classics in early editions,” Minet says. The ABA, as a member of ILAB, campaigns for its members’ rights and on 1 April 2006 organised a 24-hour boycott of the Abebooks.com site in response to the online marketplace’s increase in prices for dealers. More than 1.5 million entries were withdrawn from the site in a co-ordinated move between the ABA and other international bodies, to protest the 5.5% credit card fee set to start that day. “We feel Abebooks are now going their own way,” ABA secretary John Critchley says. “Whereas they used to be in tune with dealers, they are now losing support in the trade with the costs spiralling upwards.”

Top: the ABA originally resembled a gentlemen’s club; left: the ABA may have evolved with the times, but can the same be said of the bookseller?

SUNDAY BEST

Silver clasps, fittings, leatherwork and exquisite gilding all catch the eye at the Amsterdam Bible Museum’s Sunday Silverexhibition celebrating three centuries of decorated church books. Printed in the Netherlands between 1650 and 1900, there are almost 200 hymn books, bibles and prayer books on show from Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths, deriving mainly from the Van Noordwijk private collection. To tie in with the exhibition, Jongbloed Publishers have released a beautifully illustrated book, Zondags Zilver, in the style of a church tome, which serves as both a catalogue to the event and a history of the genre. The exhibition runs until 2 July 2006. For more information visit www.bijbelsmuseum.nl.

TWICE THE TREASURE

PBFA’s London fairs The PBFA’s summer season features more than 200 dealers at their two June London fairs. Building on the success of last year, the west London Novotel event is back,bigger than ever,with 99 exhibitors and positioned only 600 yards from the ABA fair at Olympia.There are 123 exhibitors at the Hotel Russell in Bloomsbury, always a great place to discover everything from the scholarly to the exotic, from children’s to the literary greats.This diversity is exemplified by a collection of 100 mid-Victorian Valentines,being shown by J and D Clarke and a 1701 edition of Camden’s Britanniain two volumes with 60 maps by John Seller, being offered by Wychwood books. As well as matching the higher priced items at the other June fairs,the PBFA consciously tries to cover the more accessible end of book collecting with items from £50 to £500.Free admission for both fairs.Email info@pbfa.org for the catalogue. * Hotel Russell,Russell Square 4-5 June,12-6pm and 11am-6.30pm * Novotel,1 Shortlands,Hammersmith,9-10 June,2-7pm and 10am-4pm

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