Rare Book Moment 11: What you should know about collectible Florida guide books

Florida has always been kind of quirky and strange. So, naturally it's became a destination, a place people wanted to visit. When people come to visit, they're probably going to want some help knowing what to see and do. In the earliest days, it was all word-of-mouth. Then came printing and the guide book was born. Mike discusses things you should know about early Florida guide books in this episode of Rare Book Moment.

Rare Book Moment 10: What's ephemera worth and what do you need to know?

We're having terrific time revisiting these episodes of Rare Book Moment that we created years ago in the old store in St. Petersburg. This particular one is about ephemera, those little bits of paper that somehow have survived down through the years. We like them because they give us glimpse back in time to how life was long ago. In this one, we're showing a ladies dance card that would have been used in the late 1800s, an advetising item from about the same time showcasing a printer's handiwork, a political brochure advertising some political pamphlets, and a real estate brochure that happens to be advertising a development in our area in the 1950s. We hope you are enjoying this series and, if so, let us know in the comments below. Also know that we're working on a new series, Rare Book Moment 2.0, what will be set in our new location in Dade City, Florida, about an hour or so north of our old store in St. Petersburg.

Rare Book Moment 9: Collecting color printing – what you need to know

People come in the store sometimes and ask "what should I collect?" The short answer, of course, is collect what you like, what gives you pleasure. In today's very visual world, some people are attracted to the beautiful realm of color printing.

For the first 400 years or so, there was no color printing. When it first began, everything was hand-colored, a painstaking process. In the 1830s, we begin to see stone lithographs, and later, printing from metal plate, which greatly increased the volume a printer could produce. 

There are many examples of color printing, and Mike discusses some of them in this episode of Rare Book Moment. We hope you're enjoying this revisit to this video series we began years ago. This particular one is from 2012. We'd love to hear from you so make a comment below or over on our Facebook page, if you'd prefer. See you soon.

 

Rare Book Moment 8: How to build a great collection no matter where you're starting

 

Well, it's 2021 and we're back to some semblance of normalcy. The holidays are over and we're getting back to a regular routine. We hope your holidays were joyous and memorable. We're resuming our revisit to yesteryear as we consider another of are Rare Book Moments. 

This particular one is No. 8 in the series. It's a video we recorded back in 2012, and it offers some advice for building a meaningful collection of books no matter at what point you are starting. We hope  you'll enjoy this and get something useful from it. If you do, please leave us a comment, either below on this blog or over on the YouTube channel. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you again next time.