Having posted two stories titled “How to Deal with Dealers,” parts 1 and 2, I feel I should reiterate: I am not at war with dealers. Everyone has a right to make a profit on their labor and/or knowledge, and collectibles dealers are no exception.

I personally know many fair, square, upfront dealers in a variety of collecting fields and especially among rare book and autograph dealers: there are some real gentlemen (and ladies!) among the bookselling crowd.

What I DON’T like is being dealt with by sniveling, deceitful rare book dealers who play games in order to buy cheap and sell dear: I’d much prefer that they say, as Rick Harrison used to do on Pawn Stars, something like: “Look, I would expect to sell it for $XXX and have to make enough profit to pay my overhead. Therefore, I can offer you half that,” or one-quarter, or whatever. Instead, I’ve had people ask me to send them an item on approval, knowing full well how much I wanted (and misleading me that they intended to purchase at that price), then whine about not being able to pay what I was asking.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: the only difference between some—some—collectibles dealers and fishmongers is the smell—and plenty of fishmongers are a breath of fresh air compared to that minority of unpleasant collectibles dealers.

But I digress . . .

Since books and autographs are my main collecting fields, I thought I’d share a few tips with you on getting the best stuff at the best prices . . .

1. Never bid in an auction, online or otherwise, without comparison-shopping. For the life of me, I can never understand why two dimwits will get in a bidding war on eBay, driving the price of a signed book up to $200, when the same damn book, signed and in better condition, is available for $150 through a book search website. Yet, it happens all the time. Don’t get caught up in the frenzy: Do your homework first!

2. For books and autographs, the best site I know of is viaLibri. Why? Because viaLibri includes Abebooks, Alibris, Biblio.com, Amazon, eBay, and 175 other websites internationally. Talk about casting a wide net!

3. Check dealers’ websites before you buy a book. Some dealers don’t list on the big book search sites. Or the exact same book is priced differently on three different book search sites as well as their own, which may be the cheapest. Or a dealer may post images of the book only on their own site—and when you see what it looks like, may make you not want it after all. Shop around!

4. Play with the search parameters. I’m no techie, so don’t ask me why, but searching by title only can yield fruit that searching by author only won’t. Sure, you may have to weed through a lot of listings, but think of yourself as a visitor to an online flea market. That’s where the treasures are to be found.

5. Got questions about a book? Don’t hesitate to ask. Not every book search site will let you contact a seller directly; if it does, you can save yourself time and angst by confirming a book’s availability and description—especially if it’s a hot item. (I don’t know how many times I’ve “bought” a book, only to be told that it had already been sold and the seller had neglected to remove the listing. Or that a book wasn’t accurately described. See #6.) Many sellers are happy to send scans if you request them.

6. Beware: The description may be wrong. For example, if a book has a “gift inscription” or “loose signatures” (i.e., the sewn-in pages are coming out), many book search cataloging programs will label these “signed by the author.” They’re not. If the description says, “Warmly inscribed ‘To Captain Ahab, with best wishes from your fishing buddy, Herman Melville,’” that’s a safe bet—apart from the fact that Melville would have signed it “your homeboy, Herman Melville.” Again, when in doubt, ask; otherwise you may be tying up your money in an unwanted purchase and have to return it before you can get reimbursed.

7. If you ask for a price reduction, be reasonable. To me, buying books is
   “the start of a beautiful friendship,” to quote Bogie in Casablanca. I like to purchase from people I like, and I hope my purchase will result in some goodwill—and future purchases. However, business is business, and politely asking for a discount with good reason (the operative term) is not out of line. For example, if a book has condition issues or is clearly overpriced because you know the market, those are legitimate reasons to ask for a price cut.

8. If you do get a discount, express your sincere gratitude afterward. As I noted earlier, there are a lot of nice people out there selling books and other collectibles. When someone cuts you a break, return the goodwill by saying thank you and expressing the hope that you’ll do business again soon. Dealers are people, too, and they want to feel good about selling something—ESPECIALLY at a discount.  After you make a purchase, get in the habit of sending the dealer a want list, asking that they keep you in mind if and when another item in your collecting area comes up. Again, you’ll be surprised how responsive people can be.

We’re always looking for feedback here at NorthwestCollector.com. Let us know what you think!

From time to time I check out Scripophily.com, a major dealer in collectible stock certificates—not just for those but for other assorted ephemera as well: letters, autographs, etc. Here’s a current selection (by no means complete!) related to the Old West.

Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles check signed by Isaias W. Hellman and Nelson Story in 1871. The oldest bank in Southern California, the Farmers and Merchants Bank was founded in 1871 by John D. Downey and Isaias W. Hellman, a successful German Jewish merchant and real estate speculator. Nelson Story had a colorful career that included freighting between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, driving cattle and a wagon train from Texas to Montana through hostile Indian territory, as well as mining, milling, ranching, and banking. He is a major figure in the history of Bozeman, Montana. $295. https://scripophily.net/farmers-and-merchants-bank-of-los-angeles-1871-signed-by-isaias-w-hellman-and-nelson-story/

Pawnee Bill signed check for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East Show, dated 1912. Pawnee Bill (Gordon William Lillie, 1860-1942) was a trapper, cowboy, and waiter before finding employment as a teacher at the Pawnee Agency in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). In 1883 he was hired as a Pawnee interpreter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He later started his own show,  Pawnee Bill’s Historical Wild West, Indian Museum and Encampment. Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill Cody merged their shows in 1908. I’ve seen a number of Pawnee Bill checks, and this is an early one. $395.00. https://scripophily.net/buffalo-bills-wild-west-and-pawnee-bills-great-far-east-show-check-signed-by-pawnee-bill-annie-get-your-gun-musical-is-based-on-this-company-1912

Total Wreck Mining and Milling Co. Stock Certificate, Arizona Territory, 1882. What a great name! This certificate is signed by the company president, J. M. Requa, and secretary, John McMillan. Issued to Nathan R. Vail. Mint condition. The mine was established in southwest Arizona in 1879 and incorporated in New York. It was the top silver producer in it’s time. $795. https://scripophily.net/total-wreck-mining-and-milling-co-stock-certificate-arizona-territory-1882/

Rosebud Indian Mission stock certificate, Dakota Territory, 1888. Signed by the mission’s financial secretary, Charles W. Shelton. Biblical references in upper left and upper right corners. Uneven toning otherwise very fine. According to the September 1885 issue of The American Missionary, shares—i.e., donations—were sold at a dime apiece as a way to raise the $8,000 needed to build the mission, which would serve 8,000 Native kids. If a religious school could get its students to buy 300 shares, they’d receive a large certificate, suitable for framing, to put up on their wall—and they could nominate a life member of the American Missionary Association for every additional 300 shares they bought. This share was issued to a William Taylor. $495. https://scripophily.net/rosebud-indian-mission-dakota-1888/

Remington typewriter vignette.

Remington Standard Typewriter letter from the Chicago office to the cashier of the First National Bank of Helena, Montana, 1887. The Remington firearms company started producing typewriters in 1873. This letter will be of interest to typewriter collectors (like actor Tom Hanks, who has more than 300 of them), letterhead collectors, as well as Montana buffs. Great vignette of an old-timey typewriter—presumably state-of-the-art in the late 1880s. $139.95. https://scripophily.net/remington-standard-typewriter-montana-1887/

Oregon and Transcontinental Company signed by George Pullman of the Pullman Palace Car Company,  1881. Printed by the American Banknote Company, with a vignette of Indians overlooking the unchanging and changing landscape: “oceans, rivers, mountains, farms, towns, miners and trains.”

Oregon and Transcontinental Company vignette.

(No doubt intended to illustrate progress but a sad representation of the vanishing frontier.) Issued to George Pullman and signed by him on the verso. $295. https://scripophily.net/oregon-and-transcontinental-company-signed-by-george-pullman-pullman-palace-car-company-1881/

All images courtesy of Scripophily.com.

Find something you want by reading NorthwestCollector.com? Please tell the seller about us!

Vintage stock certificates make great graduation, holiday gifts

All images courtesy of Scripophily.com

What do you get for the guy/gal/friend/loved one/coworker who has everything? A conversation piece, of course.

There are a lot of dealers’ websites that I visit regularly, just to see the new stuff on offer. One that I never tire of perusing is Scripophily.com, the premier seller of vintage and even recent stock certificates and bond—“business paper” that has become nearly obsolete in this age of online trading. I love the steel engravings and the fountain pen autographs on many of the older documents; I love the typography; I love the fact that they absolutely reek of history: I can almost smell the cigar smoke of Gilded Age boardrooms, almost hear the leather armchairs creak under the weight of freewheeling tycoons and steely-eyed investors, earnest entrepreneurs and cheapjack con men . . .

But that’s just me: lots of people buy a stock certificate for genealogical reasons—their ancestors may have owned or worked for the company—as an expression of a brand preference, or because it connects with another collect passion: gun collectors, for example, would probably love old shares in firearm companies to hang in their man caves; for movie buffs, there are certificates for motion picture studios and film labs old and new; and model railroaders will get a blast from shares in the Lionel Corporation, not to mention any of a slew of historic lines. Some folks even see offbeat humor in hanging or giving a certificate for a notorious business or one touched by scandal: like Worldcom or even Martha Stewart Living.

Scripophily.com’s president, former Northwest resident Bob Kerstein, a CPA since 1978, has been chief financial officer of companies like McCaw Cellular Corporation (now AT&T Wireless), Falcon Cable TV and American Mobile Satellite Corporation, director of financial reporting at Warner Brothers, and chief information officer at Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Vancouver Canucks and the Vancouver Grizzlies (before the latter went to Memphis), so he knows his onions about big business. In fact, Kerstein doesn’t just sell old stock and bond certificates but autographs, antique documents, early currency, and other interesting items; he also provides stock research services, so if you’re up in the attic and come across a bunch of shares in the bottom of Granny’s old trunk, Bob can tell you if they’re still redeemable.

Here’s a quick selection in a pretty wide price range that I pulled from the Scripophily.com website:

For the Civil War collector: a $1,000 bond from 1865 for the payment of bounties to volunteers from New York State ($149.95); an 1865 check signed by Medal of Honor winner John Hartranft ($175); an 1861 Confederate bond for $100 issued in Montgomery, Alabama, before the capital of the Confederacy was moved to Richmond, Virginia ($129.95).

For the transportation collector: an unissued 1950s certificate for the Cessna Aircraft Company ($495); a 50-by-40-inch UK/Canadian enlistment poster from 1915 entreating men to “REMEMBER THE LUSITANIA!” after the ship was sunk by a U-boat ($695); one hundred shares in the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company, issued to robber baron E. H. Harriman and signed by him.

For the gearhead: a 1924 certificate for ten shares in theDuesenberg Automobile & Motors Co.($395); various Packard Motor Car Company certificates dating from the 1920s to the 1950s ($24.95 to $395); twenty shares in the Yellow Cab Company of Baltimore from 1915 ($139.95).

For the Northwest collector: a 1907 $500 gold bond certificate for the Mount Hood Railroad Company, signed by trustee Matthew S. Browning of the Browning Arms Company and with a great steam locomotive/horse-drawn wagon vignette ($139.95); an 1890 certificate for 10 shares in the Grays Harbor Company (to finance the building of roads and the laying of rails, including the cost of bridges over the Wishkah and Hoquiam rivers), hand signed by the company’s president and secretary, and with a great vignette of a steamship ($395); a 1910 certificate for 20 shares in the Seattle–Tacoma Short Line with a great Mount Rainier vignette and also signed by the company’s president and secretary ($69.95).

For kids of all ages: a single share in DreamWorks Animation SKG from 2009 with Shrek’s face on it($79.95); a rare specimen gold bond certificate for $500 from the Hershey Chocolate Corporation dated 1920 ($395); an unissued circa-1960 specimen certificate for Wurlitzer Company, maker of the famous jukeboxes ($99.95); a bank check issued by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East show, dated 1912 and signed by Gordon W. Lillie (“Pawnee Bill”) himself ($395).

Scripophily.com offers custom framing, too, for the perfect presentation. Browse the inventory at www.Scripophily.com.

A couple of months ago, I received an interesting letter, apparently mass-mailed to collectibles dealers, from a gentleman whose father is a paralyzed U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD. The father had collected various things in his youth—“cards, stamps, games, etc.”—all of which had been destroyed by flooding, and the son hoped to put a new collection together for his dad. The son concluded the letter asking for “information and/or samples.”

This piqued my interest for two reasons. One, I know the rewards of collecting—as most readers of this blog also do—and can well imagine it providing therapeutic value for someone coping with anxiety (with the caveat that competitive collecting, such as bidding at auction, can be another source of stress).

The second thing that interested me was that the son seemed not have ever collected anything himself: Why else would he have mailed a bunch of collectibles dealers to ask for information? It seemed like a noble but misguided effort to help his father by “casting too wide a net,” so to speak.

Naturally, I was eager to offer encouragement and advice. Here’s my reply:

Dear Mr. ———

Please convey my gratitude to your father for his service and tremendous sacrifices for our country.

Your letter did not sound as if you have ever collected anything yourself, so I want to urge you: First off, please do not build a collection for your father. Instead, ask him what he wants to collect and then offer him any help he needs to create his own collection.

Collecting is a very personal pursuit, and people’s interests change: I collected coins when I was a kid—often by going through my father’s pocket change—and I learned a lot about coins back then, when you could still sometimes find buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. My father was born in 1906: HIS father’s pocket change might have had coins from the Civil War era! Hard to imagine.

The point is, I don’t collect coins now—or stamps or baseball cards, which I also collected—as my interests have changed. So whatever your dad collected when he was a kid may not have the same meaning to him now.

Second, BUILDING a collection is at least half the fun of HAVING the collection. If you just buy a collection and give it to your father, it won’t be as much fun as building it himself. So let your father do the collecting!

So you really need to talk with your dad and see what really interests him!

Third, unless you have a lot of money, don’t collect what everyone else is trying to collect. When I used to collect rare books when I was in my 20s, and didn’t have much money, someone told me: Don’t plan to collect signed Ernest Hemingway first editions, because you will never have much of a collection. In fact, depending on what your dad decides to collect, you may not need to spend much money at all! I used to collect my favorite ballplayers’ autographs just by writing them letters and asking for their autographs. So it cost the price of a postage stamp, some paper and some envelopes!

Fourth, and this is a big one: Ask other people who collect the same type of thing how to go about it and who to buy from. Don’t buy ANYTHING until you research it, as there are a lot of people who will overcharge you or sell you fake stuff, especially on eBay.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Once your dad decides what he wants to collect, let me know and maybe I can help with more specific information.

So far, no response, but I wonder if readers have anything else to add . . . ?

The following was originally posted online in 2013 in slightly different form.

Collecting is about restraint, not the lack of it. If you buy selectively, you’re a collector; if you buy reflexively or compulsively, you’re a hoarder. In other words:

Don’t amass “stuff.” Collect something that is meaningful to you. Don’t get locked into a habit. True collecting is much more than just acquisitiveness; it’s about knowing all you can about your subject and, even better, finding out something new that other collectors may not know.

Choose your collecting area carefully. Specialize as much as possible and stick to those parameters. It’s smarter and certainly more cost-effective to limit your spending and then broaden your field than to spend widely and then narrow your focus.

Be realistic. If you flip burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage, don’t plan to collect signed Hemingway first editions anytime soon. Better to choose a more contemporary author or artist or musician you really love whose associated memorabilia is within your price range. Which is to say:

Stay within your budget. Part of the fun of collecting is getting great stuff at great prices. Sure, if you have deep pockets, you can buy whatever you want by just throwing money at it—but I question how rewarding that could possibly be, especially as you’re bound to overpay more often than not.

Some of my favorite pieces are the ones that cost the least. This usually means spreading the word about what I’m looking for, watching a lot of online auctions and dealer websites, exercising patience, and otherwise persevering. It also involves plenty of research. When you finally nab what you’ve been searching for, that’s when you’ll feel the most gratification.

Quality is more important than quantity. Unless something is unique, one-of-a-kind, or so rare that you never expect to see another, it’s bound to come on the market again—sooner than you think, in better condition, and/or at a better price. Before buying or bidding on something, ask yourself: Do I really need this? If your honest answer is no, pass on it.

You can’t have everything. Collecting is a journey that never ends. Unless you collect a very limited series of something—rookie cards for the 1969 Mets, for example, or Franklin Mint spoons for the state of Hawaii—you’ll never acquire every worthwhile collectible in your area of interest . . . so don’t try to buy everything. Again, be selective.

When you lose an item, let it go. You may mistype a last-minute bid and not have enough time to correct it; or sleep through an early morning auction; or mistake the date or time an auction was due to end; or encounter a computer glitch; or discover that an item was withdrawn from an auction because the consignor decided to sell it directly to another bidder . . . All these things have happened to me. Most often I’m simply outbid. It used to ruin my whole day—even my whole week.

Then I learned to take a deep breath and just get over it. If you want to get spiritual about it, just accept that everything happens for a reason. Maybe it means that you’ll get something even better before long: As Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another door opens . . .” Or consider it payback for the great stuff you were lucky enough to get in the past. The important thing is not to agonize over a loss and, if possible, to learn something from it.