The collection of old and rare publications such as books, magazines, and newspapers has many loyal friends. The reasons why one deals with collecting rare books varies and are certainly different from person to person. The large group of rare book collectors reads everything, especially old editions which have been exhausted and have become unavailable for many years now.
Some of the rare books have become digitized and recorded in electronic form but it is always a different feeling and a great difference when one has a rare book in hand. This special breed of book collectors, the rare book collectors, add to their collection and continue to pursue rare books almost all their lives with only some brief intervals of rest. They may hunt local versions of their area of expertise, while others search for issues related to their interests, and many of them exhaust one subject and turn to others. Still another group of collectors is primarily captivated by the look, feel and touch of the museum publications.
Apart from the beautiful engravings, lithographs, impressive title vignettes and print jewelry that often accompany and decorate the rare books, magazines, and newspapers, a book may have a life of hundreds of years, carrying memories and data faded and forgotten by modern man. It is rarely ever that someone is left untouched when in front of these rare publications, regardless of his/her level of education, social class and status. There is an undeniable charm that exudes the feel of earlier years and is now extinct in our fast paced modern times.
The almost fetishistic desire of a private collector to gather, arrange, touch and live among beautiful, precious and rare forms of earlier times is certainly great. The obsession that “burns” the passionate collectors, their personal investments and expectations, and the narcissistic dimension of “collecting” all can rise and be expressed in the rare book arena.
Rare and old books and other printed forms, are, for a group of people, an important form of investment. The books are like old wine: as the years pass they get better and their price goes up.
How many times have you opened an old or rare book , with its cover ‘troubled’ and browsed through its yellowish pages without inhaling the scent of the happening of its time and the aura of old times?
The attraction to the old and rare book is that they’re deep inside every person awaiting the right moment to rise, so to some, a rare book offered will be a priceless gift as it will become the key which unlocks this incredible passion.
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