Grandmother's Old New England Pembroke Table

Looking At

Grandmother’s Old New England Pembroke Table.

Understanding it and Proving to be a

Worthy and Gracious Guardian of it.

            This is not going to be a swell feel-good essay.  No.  It is about negligence and abandonment.  It is about ‘not seeing’ and bad taste.  Too.  It is about the cheap, the crass, the tawdry, the self importance and the flaunting of these as a proper etiquette.  It is about turning the back.  On.  It is about dithering and walking away while babbling at a smart phone.  It is not about being blind for that negligence is too ‘don’t know’.  One does ‘know better’ one would feel.  But that proves to be abysmal too.

            When I first see the old table, I am twenty steps away in the daylight at the head of a garage bay.  The table is back against the rear wall in the moist gray light.  I know exactly what it is.

            Exactly.

            And I am not there to be shown that table.  I am there to ‘look at’ ALL of the “stuff back there”.  The “car” had been moved out to allow my ease of viewing.  I pretend to care about all of this and, especially, the desire to ‘have the space back’ and that space “all cleaned out too”.

            I don’t care.  If it wasn’t for the old table, once a seven generation family anchor now about to be jettisoned in a burial-at-sea ‘cleanout’... I would not have

            Stuck around.

            But, of course, I know better.  I have better taste and... a better historic eye.  A better art eye.  A better sense of (old New England) heritage.  And... a better sense of (old New England) romance.  When I look at the old table.  Twenty feet away.  In the moist gray garage bay light.

            I say nothing about this.

            In less than an hour the old table is in the back of the truck with the... ‘rest of the stuff’ from the garage bay.  The bay is empty until the car is ‘parked back in there’.

            What is an antique table from twenty feet away?  It is a sensation; a physical nervous tingle merged with an art based mind-to-eye notification seconds later becoming affirmation.  All twenty feet away.  In the moist gray light.  “Back there”.  So not only do I say nothing but I, too, do nothing.  The table (once a “grandmother’s”) is jettisoned; buried at sea.  In the back of my truck.

            The table top has a large... from-planted-pot... water stain on the ‘its top’.  Grandmother created that?  Or was it her grandmother.  This doesn’t take long to figure out. And... nothing is said or mentioned of it; the plant pot stain OR the table.  Anyway.  But I figure it out in seconds

            See here now the what I see is that the old table of Grandmother’s is a “has been refinished” sometime along the time.  That refinish was ‘professionally done’ too for it is a good (uniform) job removing the old original ‘Indian red’ painted surface.  That refinish too had a new ‘good quality’ Hepplewhite style drawer pull ‘put on’ where once there was none excepting a tiny brass pull.  That is long lost leaving only its tiny hole... under the new hardware... on the old drawer front.  The drawer was originally designed to be open by the pull of fingers reaching the chamfered pull slot at the bottom of the drawer front.  But no one knows that is there now... just as it has always been there... except me.  I pull the drawer out from there just slightly only to ‘let me know’ (the drawer is ‘straight’; ‘all original’ and works).  This is all too much for you already-anyway isn’t it:  And done in ‘not noticed’ too.  Better off checking your txt messages... darling.

            So the ‘refinish’ is probably 1950’s but possibly dating earlier to be 1930’s.  So... it is just grandmother’s potted plant stain.  Not HER grandmother’s stain.  But it is HER grandmother’s table... that she discovered and ‘professionally refinished’.  Not the smartest antiquarian move but does ‘show she cares’ (about the table).  And cared.  Then she died (passed on).  The table was a ‘still here’ after that.

            Before that; grandmother’s - grandmother’s table, was a grandmother’s table before that for... how many generations?  Lived in that house?  With the table always the ‘still here’ generation after generation until generation after generation... finally... moved the table out of that house to be... ahhhh.... ‘stored’ at the back of the garage bay to be... ahhhh...... jettison it as burial at sea.  Okay with this and I am still twenty feet away from the table too?

            Maybe if someone (that’s a very large body of people) knew what the old table “is” or... “WAS”... maybe.  Right?  Yeah:  Just like that... everything is gonna be okay.  Why?  Because I get the table and I know what it IS and it IS in the back of my truck and I am driving away with it after seven generations of ‘grandmother’s table’ all pass before everyone’s eyes... in the moist gray back of the garage bay.  “See?”

            Now... what is it; this grandmother’s table?  It is a... taper leg Hepplewhite fold leaf Pembroke table with a drawer; a style of English origin very popular in, and too, made in New England between 1780 and 1820.  This table is made of New England Birch wood.  It (the New England and ‘made’) is gussied up to be titled ‘New England Federal period taper leg Hepplewhite style Pembroke table with drawer’.  The ‘Pembroke’ comes, vaguely, from ‘Earl of Pembroke’ (England) ...vaguely.  The whole is a ‘foundation grade’ New England style and taste furniture classic.  Hence the ‘twenty feet away’.  It is so classic one may possibly note it at FORTY FEET AWAY.  If one cannot do this (note it at all)... one’s (New England Wasp) ‘taste’ is “crude” (bad).

            I restate this again:  If one does not know what this table is when one sees one then one has... bad taste.  Don’t wave your finger at me.  Seven generations of your grandmothers are waving their fingers AT YOU.

            How does this be the ‘comes to be’?  Because I “grew up” with these tables in the houses; antique New England Pembroke tables in old New England seven generation homes.  You did too.  You just ‘don’t know’.  Or notice.  They are there.

            Ours wasn’t in the kitchen (a ‘kitchen’ or ‘breakfast’ table) but a lot of them are.  Ours was not.  No.  Our kitchen had an old handmade-on-the-farm sawbuck table painted in an ochre yellow paint that was the same size as a New England Pembroke table... that we’ve all used as our breakfast table for seven generations.  I still have it and use it.  For this generation it is a ‘my table’.  My Aunt carved her initials on the end of the top during her generation of usage.  Because of this table our ‘grandmother’s old New England Pembroke table was somewhere else in the house.  That is common; for these tables to be ‘around’ “somewhere else”.

            Ours was ‘under’ the double windows in the... you call it a ‘living room’... where around three walls of that room are seating and tables all facing the fourth wall with that being the old fireplace.  Seating is ‘center – left side – right side’ ‘before the fireplace’.  This room, the original main room of the original Federal period built home ...that is now just the ell of the whole home after the Greek Revival addition was added to the front of the Federal homestead in 1832 relegating the old fireplace as ‘old’... this room... is where our family sat.  And sits.

            There, on the left side below the double windows is our family’s ‘grandmother’s Pembroke table’ “with drawer”.  It is arranged so that the ‘drawer end’ (the end with the drawer in it) faces left onto my grandmother’s (sewing) chair... where she always sat.  She died in 1982.  It is just the same there; the table with ‘her light’ on it.  Her “sewing” chair.  The drawer on the table pulled slightly open with her sewing in it.  Her sewing bag behind the chair.  With the... old light olive green glass demijohn that she was filling with old postage stamps she cut off of the mail... whatever that was about... it’s just the same.  We called the Pembroke “grandmother’s sewing table”.  She called it “my grandmother’s sewing table”.  That’s as far back as anyone ever commented.  It was always there.  I guess.  Everyone knows what it is.  No one has ever mentioned moving it, jettisoning it or having it buried at sea.  It has never been in the moist gray light at the back of a garage bay.

            That table... is the ‘first one of those’ I ever really looked over hard.  As a budding antiquarian I found out about the form; New England Pembroke, and... studied it.  Study means I ‘looked’ my grandmother’s sewing table all over.  I even took the drawer all the way out, with its contents still in it, sat it on the floor and peaked ‘all underneath’.  My grandmother was there for that.  She kept talking about her grandmother and used the word “Pembroke” at least a dozen times.  The whole result of this council about the table is that

            I had this (antiquarian) form

            Down.

            Since then it’s just been one old New England Pembroke table...

            After another.

            I’ve been finding them... and purloining them... for years (decades).  No one has ever stopped me.  Often someone says “nice table” or “I love the leg” or “It DOES have a drawer doesn’t it”.  Say stuff like that... with a knowing inflection.  One is pretty advanced with the New England Pembroke form when one encounters the knowing inflection realm of knowing about these tables.  That little world is ‘most of the time’ a ‘blow by’.  That’s how that table that day had traveled to the moist gray lighted garage bay.  It had become ‘blow by’.

            I don’t ever expect anyone to know about old New England Pembroke tables.  I mean “why bother”.  You either know or don’t know.  “Sort of know” that a Pembroke is an ‘old table’ doesn’t bring one along.  No.  That’s where that plant pot stain comes along.  That’s real; grandmother’s plant pot stain.  She did that.  Grandmother did that... for you... to remind you of her... for the eternity... of the ‘her table’.  If you try to fix it... it will look like you ‘mucked with it’.  So just LEAVE IT ALONE.  Just put a doily over it and set the electric lamp on that.  If anyone ever asks, which they will not... just say that’s your (greatest-great) grandmother’s ...old New England Pembroke table... and that she did that; stained the table... with her potted plant.  Since they don’t have such a Pembroke table themselves... like... what are they gonna say?  “MINE HAS A STAIN LIKE THAT TOO!”.  It would really be just so cool if that is what happens.  It’s never happened to me yet.  In fact no one has ever said anything about any of the old Pembrokes I’ve recovered from the sea. 

            That is really what one gets out of this:  An old New England statement of good (understated) taste.  The tables are not rare.  The form is not rare.  Conditions vary noting two hundred years of New England domestic usage.  Cost of specimens are ‘easily affordable’ down to downright “cheap” when found... with fair regularity... at estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores and even ‘antiques shops’.  That is because ‘nobody knows what they are’ or ‘cares’ ‘anymore’ “they say”.  That’s not the way I know it though.  I see the tables all the time acting as guardians of old New England homes.  I will even say that without a Pembroke... an old New England home is ‘empty’.  And it is very possible for you to already have a true antique ‘grandmother’s Pembroke’ in your home and ...not know it.  Wouldn’t THAT be a surprise.  But, these days, people’s ‘taste’ is “just that foolish”.

"Zipper" Harris. Part Two. "Stumble Blocked Too"

"Zipper" Harris

Part Two

"Stumble Blocked Too"

            What Zipper considers to be “antiques” is anything he considers “old” and he “likes”.  It is that simple... when reconnoitering the ‘his sense of (antiquarian) object’.

            Zipper’s actual sense of ‘considers to be antiques’ is process of which the actual antique objects are (merely) a component.  And he is unaware of this.  That is a component too.  These, to me, are no surprise and are too... “useful”.  Zipper and his realm view of ‘antiques’ is as if he is an energized dog restrained on a lease.  I hold the lease.

            I drop the leash.

            Zipper goes.

            The more ‘antiques’ the more he ‘goes’.

            It is that simple.

            This (Zipper’s process) actually defines ‘antiques’ to him.  He is a groundhog in an attic full of antiques.  So much a groundhog is he that he cannot, in most all opportunities, actually get himself into that attic for he, in the frenzy of his process, raises the query of the attic owner of ‘do I want this dog-off-leash in my antiquarian attic?’.  That is where I come in.  “Tact”.

            The first time I had Zip ‘work for me’ in an estate purchase and cleanout setting has set the route that we still, as a team, follow.  Beginning with him on my leash, I held him firm with just enough Zipper bluster released in the estate to assure the heirs that he is ‘what he appears to be’ and I ‘have that under control’.  Zipper was working on a much more ‘lookout for self’ level.  I knew this so I

            Told him to... right from the get-go, set aside “THERE” “ANYTHING” HE “WANTED”.  He did and did too configure, as I expected, to gather a ‘what he likes’ merged with “what I would let him have”.  He knew to NOT ‘try for’ the old tall clock under the eves.  But all of that was not the actual point of antiquarian process that Zipper discovered that day.

            What he discovered is when I brought in a box of large black plastic trash bags and told Zip to ‘put all that (his gathered pile) in those and put them in the back of the truck’.

            “What are we doing?”

            “Taking that to the dump”.  Zip’s antiquarian puppy dog face showed both protest and ‘start sobbing’.  Shut-up I said yanking his leash.  The heirs on the other hand, were “Very pleased” we were “cleaning up”, bagging, loading and hauling away “all that”.  “for free”.

            We drove to Zip’s barn and unloaded all the “garbage bags” and then... ‘drove back for more’.  Zip, to this day, still has problems recognizing that if I treat what the heirs feel is trash as trash they are completely satisfied with us taking that thrash as it being trash in the trash bags... to the dump... Zip’s barn... “for free”.  Zip is still ...stumble blocked... that it is HE who

            Get’s it (these truck loads of ‘antiques I like’)

            For free.

            Once introduced to the ‘in field’ actually happens antiques dealer’s proverb of ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, Zip has come along with that over the years.  The stick point (stumble block) continues to be that Zip denotes the ‘trash’ to be actual ‘antiques’ that he ‘likes’.  I do not feel he will ever work this through and... with I holding the leash, he will never have to.  What does that this mean too?  It means that Zip could not do this (trash bag estate antiques and take them ‘to the dump’) by himself.  There are just to many ‘antiques’ that he ‘likes’ for him to, poker face required, ‘do that’.  I, of course, have no problem with Zip helping me with ‘estate rubbish management’.  Also... he is fully satisfied and has commended my actions for forty years.  It is the near most featured of his mantras about I as an antiquarian.

            What is his most featured mantra?  I will choose that it is the well renown and defiant action of, without explanation, I kicking the boxes, bags, piles and... all... rubbish in attics, sheds, out building, barn lofts, crawl spaces and cellars.  Of course the heirs eventually demand to know what I am doing.  I explain I am kicking all to get the mice out before I open (and stick my hand in) the box or whatever.  Digested fast (‘choked down’) this served-notice from I of that... gets rid of

            Them

            Pronto.

            Once one sees this work at work... one does not forget this magic trick.  Zip has “never forgotten”... from ‘day one’.  AND once again this is a slight-of-foot that Zip cannot do well himself.  His deliveries (the kicking and explanations) are a bit forced and prompted. It works for him but he acknowledges roughness. I, of course, when at this mice kicking... am in my element.  And:

            If one wishes to get dastardly with this... the top-of-the-attic-stairs... shining of the flashlight along the exposed ridgepole of the roof above to... state when the heirs query... that I am “checking the bats”... causes rapid ‘down attic stair retreat’ from... an ‘older the better’ attic ...contents.

            No, no, no now JUST:  When the light from the flashlight travels along the ridge pole simply peer hard to notice the slight squirm of the rousted bats as the light hits ’em.  They ain’t gonna come after you unless you go up there and poke ‘em hard.  They don’t want you but they are there.  The middle ground is noting that they are there, reporting this to the heirs and then

            THEY ARE GONE... down to the bottom of the stairs where, poised at this stair bottom... they are now ready for me to ‘buy everything up there and clean it out too’.  Bats, the number of them ‘up there’ may be estimated by the amount and freshness of the bat poop on the attic floor (and on top of the stuff).  That is valuable information just for you.  The general populace gets real queasy about actual bat poop so I keep quiet.  I’ve been dust-off-bat-doo for nearly five decades so... ahhhh.... you ARE better off at the bottom of the stairs.  Kicking the boxes for mice is, as attic theater at its best, more fun.  Anyway.

            From Zip mired in his “antiques I like” as actual process and not the actual “antiques  I found” and too his decades long failure to denote that this process is actually what he wants as “antiques” anyway... and too... I know this... “WE” as a team have become a well oiled machine of antiques-cleaned-out.  Zip, in his hoard barn, has in fact decades of ‘antiques I like’ that are... well... all his and guarded that way too.  I, in my barn-stop-by-visits find myself among Zip’s hoard of ...stuff we long ago took to the dump.  That’s right... and I speak of forty years worth.  Hoard.  Yes?  Right:  You do see now don’t you.  It is process... not the actual ‘stuff’ (hoard).  And Zip... is not... a hoarder.  No for all of the barn’s antiques store contents... IS FOR SALE.  Should one pay Zip’s price.... it is sold... to... well... YOU.

            Now we get a little deeper.  It is what I call ‘the purity of the dream’.  Zip’s dream is very pure.  That is why we have lasted as partners for so long.  I supply the landscape of Zip’s pure dream.  He cannot ‘get the stuff’ into his ‘barn antiques store’ without me... literally... grooming  the estate ( of antiquarian process) with direct consideration of his ‘pure (antiquarian) dream’.  THIS has always absorbed ME; managing Zip’s perfect pure dream of antiquarian process he thinks of as ‘antiques I like’... with this ... “never changing” including the mounds of forty years hoarding of that wholeness (Zip’s purity of dream).. Is it my ‘purity of dream’ too?

            “A little bit” I guess I should allow... shouldn’t (eye) I.

            I am not stumble blocked too by all of this ‘antiques I like’ in an antiques store in an old barn... filled with a hoard of forty years of ‘cleaned out’ and ‘taken to the dump’.  A hoard that is treasured for its purity... and that purity is only a dream... and has little to do with the stuff that is hoard... in fact.  I can and do... I may... walk by in the dream of the ‘antiques I like’ as the hoard in the barn.  Why

            May I?

            Because of the divisiveness of the ‘those others’; the keepers, the decorators and the collectors of... ‘antiques I like’.  Yes... THOSE them that I am eye.  All over the place they are.  Flea market whimpering.  Auction hall back corners.  Trade fair expeditions (often crossing four or five states to attend) and now too the relish of the electronic process of... purity of dream... too:  Smart phone mayhem.  And more... such as yard sale due diligence, Thrift Store bag sales but too including the old fashion ‘stop hopping’ along antiquarian highways found, for example, on the coast of Maine.  All of these would leave Zip far in a dust if it were not for his ‘purity of dream.  And I may stand in his barn and poke his dream myself... should I happen by.

The Secrets of the Old Rare Books Collector's Secrets - Part Three (A) - "Handbill Throwaway"

The Secrets of the Old Rare Books Collector's Secrets

Part Three (A)

"Handbill Throwaway"

            It has been thirty-five years... or longer... since I had my first rare books collector contact with Benjamin’s (her doggie Part One) caregiver and ‘old rare books’ collector.  I am not a rare books collector; I am a rare books dealer... who has obsessive force contact with... ‘old rare books collectors’.  I believe that... Benjamin, her doggie... is the forth doggie she’s had since I had my ‘first... contact’.  I am not sure; it could be the fifth.  “Ahhhh...” is my focus on that; the history of her doggies.  That is an oral litany I avoid and veer off from.  Especially the “put down” tales.  The only ‘put down’ for me is a rare book and its own disaster:  I fear and free fall... should Madam of Benjamin act to ‘put down’ an old rare book... I am... trying to sell her.  Yes and that put down is a ‘time to go’ whistle.  Too.  I remind that God has damned rare books in our current world (Part One) and that I, as a dealer, am always standing at the door of old rare books Purgatory. 

            My... vile first ‘this collector’ contacts were that; vile.  She was new to the old rare books world and so... therefore... gathered (accumulated) ‘old books” as if they were ‘rare old books’ that

            She alone

            “Found”.  And found out too... them to be rare too... presumptively.  THAT, for a old rare books collector... is a single form of Purgatory... itself... too.  I, a dealer... just wanted her damn money; an aspect (having money) she showed signs of having... to my trained ‘old rare books eye’.  “NOT FOR YOU” was the subliminal rating of my business with her wallet and after a couple of commercial title page tosses... I gave up commerce and settled for bookseller voyeur... at the regular ‘we crossed trails’ church book sales, local estate sales and... local auctions.  I did not wonder... to wonder... what bibliographies were her favorites and ‘most used’.  No... she did not ‘carry those with her’ the way I did... and still do.  That may not sound vile but

            It is.

            Vile too was that... she ate the foods... vended at the (church) sales too... while she “looked at” “the books”.  Molasses cookies... gingerbread men with sugar decorations... “turnovers”.  YES that is exactly right and included eating (native Maine) “wild blueberry”... turnovers... while she “looked at” a... large... Victorian bound... Gustave Dore Dante’s Devine Comedy tome with its “engravings”... that was (and still is) ...valueless... but in ‘perfect condition’... until a goo-gob of blueberry turnover goo... “dropped”.  Okay?  I didn’t have my seatbelt on so was ejected from the church basement book sale... for goo-gob groaning AND value-less-ing... the whole “OLD RARE” book.  Too.

            This all went from there (that)... for decades of I witnessing She ‘finding’ ‘valuable’ old rare books AT... whatever and absconding them in furtive nominal cash on folding card table top abscond while I stood ground with ‘my GOD’ appraisals and empty handed escapes.  OH EVERY NOW AND THEN I would find a little “something” but most of these sorts of sales of ...old... rare.... books... “don’t yield”.  Except to the fascinated old rare books “collector” (accumulator).  Yes:  That is it:  Boxes of old books purloined at church basement sales... packed in their cardboard boxes in the classic “MY OWN BASEMENT”.  Then that being that... WHY would I ogle all this... and her entourage, too?

            Gathering my wits about me after a decade of rough and tumble contact I still wantonly PEEKED at all she ‘did’... especially a (or any) rare books ‘in hand’.  That right there is a secret of a secret; old rare books collector’s secret.  That is right:  It is.  Bibliomanes, no matter how low (poor) the old rare book be... in hand... and “over there”... ogle it.  It is ‘automatic’ and not restrained.  Both of these are assisted by ‘it doesn’t matter’.  Because it doesn’t... matter.  I mean... who’s gonna stop that/this?  NO ONE.  All are over at the baked goods table eating molasses cookies.  NO ONE CARES.  “God has damned old rare books in this world”.  So.... NO MATTER what the old book held in hand ‘over there’ is... I ogle it.  To my satisfaction.

            That last may be very... vulgar and vile.  What does that mean?  It means a ‘Heaven Forbid’ that what I spy in a ‘her hand’ is judged to be a ‘possibly’ ‘a that’ and... well... then... I go over and ASK HER about it (the book in her hand).  VILE and VULGAR behavior... especially if she hides the crummy old book from my sight within her garment OR is totally forthcoming and presents to my hand the crummy old book to “WHAT DO YOU (I) THINK?”.

            “I think I am going to die”.

            “Eat one of the cookies; that will perk you up”.  How many decades did this “THAT” go on for?  IT IS STILL GOING ON.  Do you understand how many old church sale books she’s “found” that I have looked at and she has stored away in boxes in her basement.  And worse... I remember them... all... should I ever ‘see them again’.  AND THAT DOES HAPPEN TOO.  This too is a secret of the old rare books collector’s secrets.  ONE DOES... ‘remember’ the old books... ‘looked at’... even the crummiest one...  Yes one does... forever... and if one does not... one stands very little chance of “EVER” being a “GOOD” old rare books collector. 

            Of course the other side of this vile ratio was that She wished and wanted to see ME naked too; MY ‘old rare books’ at hand and ‘just found’ so SHE would strip search ME with that abusive vanguard being stymied ‘most often’ by I ...having found “nothing”.  But better... was the “I FOUND” that was a “GOOD” and, too, was OUT OF HER reach (collecting realm).  THAT IS a ...dirty trick... and is too a secret of an old rare books collector’s (and dealer’s) secret.  Oh yes it is.  “And leaves her befuddled”... too.

            To purvey to the reader this “I found a GOOD out of her collecting realm” I must establish a ‘such as that’ for the reader to be knowing of; a peculiar old rare book that we may together know and know that others do not know.  This.  This would be an old rare books collector’s secret.  It is not a ‘secret of a... secret.

            Titled to the dealer trade and collector’s “I KNOW” are the category of printed old rare books called a “Handbill Throwaway”.  This is a hand held size single wisp of old paper with printing on... one or both sides.  To understand... it is the piece of trash paper handed out by a persona usually standing on a sidewalk foisting these paper wisps at all passing by with a success of about sixty-five percent acceptance and often joined to promotional verbal banter relative to the ...handbill... throwaway being passed out.  Yes and there we go; we now know what a ‘that’ is.  PRINTED on one side; a “broadside” handbill throwaway or TWO sides; a “broadsheet” handbill throwaway.  And all are for a “God Knows What”.  One receives the paper wisp, glances at the “piece of crap” and it is thrown... away.  GONE; a rare book... thrown away.

            A fair example is a handbill requesting purchase of “DINNER TICKETS” at an 1875 Bowdoin College commencement dinner... in this case the fifty year anniversary commencement meal of  the Hawthorne and Longfellow’s graduations.  Simple enough; handed out, scan-read, thrown away.  It is a rare book form that ‘very rarely’ ‘survives’ (is preserved).  It is a singular moment of... print on paper... and is, usually, about that moment too.

            Rarely are these (handbill throwaways) actually saved.  MOST ALL are chance preservation?  HOW THAT?  How about folded up and used as a book mark... in a book... that no one reads... and is donated to a church sale... and sold to me... who spies the folded wisp and knows what it is... AND the often remarkable ‘moment’ it is of... with that moment being ever more a grand historic moment... therefore... making the throwaway a true ‘rare’ and... VALUABLE... ‘old rare book’...:  A “PRESIDENT SHOT”... handbill... throwaway.  I am confident the reader understands ‘this’ ‘now’.

            Most ‘old rare books collectors’ take... a while... to get to this point of rare book hunter... if they ‘do ever’ get there...to this ... skill.  Sense.  Notice.  Collecting.  Desire.  Purchase.  But if and when they do, one is ‘working with’ a very adroit rare book collector.  For the day to day it may be an easy risk to assume that the collector in question ‘does not know’ about the... broadside... handbill... throwaway... MARKET.  Finding one of these folded up in a book at a church sale IS FINDING a rare book that may be... “MORE VALUABLE than ANY of the ALL the books at the church sale.  THAT is why I am ‘there’... and other old rare book collector’s secrets... I have not mentioned... nor am going to.

            No.  I stick to the handbill throwaways.  It is a little world out there in the “God has damned the rare book in this world”.  And Benjamin’s caregiver has “NO CLUE” back then and ...still to this day?  Yes...   This...; old rare books... is about printing on paper.  That is how you start old rare book collecting.  NO collecting old books.  One collects PRINTING... on PAPER... and its ‘many varied forms of that”.  And that is only a ‘secret’.  It is not a ‘secret of a secret’.