Miniature books offer a glimpse of history

Miniature Olympic Oath book is printed in five languages. It comes in a Plexiglas case with built-in magnifier.

With the rise of Hitler and Nazism in the late 1930s, many Jewish professionals began to leave Germany. Among them was Walter Schatzki, a young antiquarian bookseller who settled in New York City in 1937.

The antiquarian book trade in the United States was, at that time, quite different from the well-established, organized field that existed in Europe. That was about to change, with the help of emigré booksellers fleeing the tyranny of anti-Semitic Arians.

Within a dozen or so years, there were sufficient numbers of antiquarian booksellers in the country to form the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America. Schatzki was on the original board of governors for ABAA.

Schatzki became an authority on rare children's book and, indeed, assembled one of the most famous catalogs of children's books ever created by an American bookseller. Schatzki also was interested in miniature books, a phenomenon that had been around almost since the beginning of books but enjoyed a sort or resurgence in the 1960s.

It's unclear whether Schatzki commissioned the production of a series of four miniatures that included The Lord's Prayer, Lincoln's Freedom Oath, Serments d'Amour (Oaths of Love) and the Olympic Oath. In 1966, he told Julian Edison, editor of Miniature Book News, that he was the distributor of the tiny books that had been published by Waldmann & Pfitzner in Munich. He is often credited with being the publisher, though.

A copy of the Olympic Oath book is in the collection at Lighthouse Books, ABAA. The micro-miniature books measures 3/16-inch by 1/8-inch. It is bound in navy blue leather with the Olympic rings stamped on the front cover. The text of the oath is printed in five languages. It comes in a Plexiglass case with a swivel magnifier. The books originally sold for $3.75 each or the set of four in a mother-of-pearl-like cassette for $17.50.

The first miniature book was probably a prayer scroll commissioned by the Japanese Empress Shotoku in 770 A.D. It was printed on a scroll 2-3/8 inches wide from wooden blocks and distributed throughout the country to help the spread of Buddhism.

Miniatures were popular among the educated classes in the Middle Ages before Gutenberg created moveable type. These were colorful illuminated manuscripts. One of the earliest miniature books printed after Gutenberg's bible was the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which contained prayers and songs. It was printed in 1475.

Perhaps one of the most popular small books was known as the English Thumb Bible. Though the tiny books were published as early as 1614, they acquired the Thumb appellation apparently as reference to General Tom Thumb, the English dwarf made famous by P.T. Barnum.

It's not clear whether Walter Schatzki was fascinated with miniatures as an avocation or merely as a business proposition but two of the most well-known miniature enthusiasts in the country – Julian Edison and Ruth Adomeit – met in Schatzki's bookshop on 57th Street in New York.

Adomeit was editor of The Miniature Book Collector, a series of informative booklets, for a few years. She left her considerable miniature book collection to the Lilly Library at Indiana University.

Good advice from an antiques expert

 

My friend Blake Kennedy was appraising antiques people brought to the Sunshine City Antiques & Collectibles Show at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg on Saturday.

Appraisal work is specialized. It takes a lot of knowledge and Blake is very good at it.

People were invited to bring their treasured items to the antiques show on Saturday and have them appraised. Blake spent most of the day sitting at a table on the mezzanine level at The Coliseum patiently listening to stories from antiques lovers who had brought their items for him to see.

We do book appraisal work at Lighthouse Books, ABAA. It is sometimes a long an tedious process, and much goes into the final answer. I have much regard for the kind of work that Blake does.

Blake stopped by the booth toward the end of the day on Saturday and chatted a bit. I asked him a key question about what he would like people to know if they have antiques and are considering selling them.

His answer was similar to what I tell people who have potentially valuable books and are considering a sale. Listen to the short video above to hear his answer.

And, Blake, thanks for stopping by.

The Sunshine City Antiques & Collectibles Show runs through Sunday.

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We're at the Sunshine City antiques show

There certainly are a lot of antiques lovers in the Tampa Bay area. Many of them are at the Sunshine City Antiques and Collectibles Show at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg this weekend. And we've had a good share of antique book lovers stop by the booth. We're in the first alcove on the left as you come in. We brought a van load of vintage books, maps, prints and photographs to share.

In this slide show, you'll see some of the treasures we brought to the show and also some of our friends who have stopped by. We hope you will, too.

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D.B. McKay and the mystery photographs

Portrait of D.B. McKay. | Click on photographs to enlarge them.

A couple of articles in the St Petersburg Times the other day about minor mysteries surrounding some Bay area personalities brought to mind a collection at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

10 children on a buggy.

Jeff Klinkenberg was looking for the story behind the legend of a seven-foot man who used to fish off the St. Petersburg Pier for years. John Barry was getting the lowdown on a box of papers from Cuba about Vicente Martinez-Ybor, the founder of Ybor City. Both were dealing with different parts of the colorful tapestry that is Tampa Bay's history.

D.B. McKay was no less a personality was in the region's past. He served two terms as mayor, was owner and publisher of The Tampa Times, a bank director, a founder of the University of Tampa, and argueably one of the area's most influential people.

Longtime history buffs delighted in his Pioneer Florida page in the Sunday Tampa Tribune, a feature he began in 1949 when he was appointed historian for Hillsborough County. The stories from the newspaper feature eventually were collected and published as a three-volume set called Pioneer Florida. There is a Pioneer Florida set at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

Nine men in suits.

But it is a collection of ephemera and photographs relating to McKay that has us intrigued. For one thing, there is the photograph – a portrait of the venerable gentleman puffing a cigar and reading a newspaper, presumably The Tampa Times. Inscribed in the lower right corner is the legend "Gerald B. Smith, Tampa. 34." It is unclear whether that is a reference to 1934. If so, McKay would have been about 66. His second term as mayor would have been over. He would have been serving as publisher of The Tampa Times.

Two other photographs in the collection beg explanation as well. One shows 10 children on a one-horse carriage in front of a house, perhaps sometime after the turn of the century. McKay and his wife, Aurora, had 10 children, according to a typewritten sheet in the collection. Perhaps this is a photograph of the McKay children.

Birthday cake for D.B. McKay's 90th.

The other picture shows nine men dressed in suits standing in front of cabbage palms. Eight of the men sport handlebar moustaches. The clean-shaven man holds a cigar. This photograph appears to be a copy of a dilapidated original. Neither photo has identification of the people shown.

Other ephemera in the collection includes a handwritten poem about a fruit stealing blue jay, an anecdote about a fruit canning project gone awry and a typewritten article entitled "Thank You, Friends," apparently written after the publication of the Pioneer Florida volumes. And there are other assorted items.

One photo, though, offers no mystery at all. The legend on the back proclaims that it is D.B. McKay's 90th birthday, and pictured with him are seven children, apparently his grandchildren. The children are identified with family names Ott, Burnette, Manry and Guyton.