LEFT INSIDE: Another Bookshop Receipt

This bookshop receipt was Left Inside a copy of The Wallet of Kai Lung that I purchased many moons ago from John Chandler's long-lived but sadly now defunct bookstore Bookman's Corner on Broadway and Wellington in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.  I've mentioned this mess of a bookstore that I dearly loved visiting a couple of times on this blog. I bought both books listed on this receipt as they were shelved one right next to each other in John's store.  Amazing that the receipt dated Dec 19, 1955 stayed inside that book for over 50 years. And that both books and the ancient receipt traveled from Seattle to San Francisco, then to a warehouse in Chicago, and finally transferred from John's warehouse to his book crammed store sometime in 2007 where a few weeks later I bought both of those books by Ernest Bramah. Click on the photo to enlarge. Those who can read cursive will be able to read the book titles Wallet of Kai Ling and Kai Lung's Golden Hours as well as the customer’s name and address. He paid a total of $5.20 for two used reprint editions that were published in 1929 and 1932. The book I found the receipt inside is shown below. 

The customer's name is Tony Marks who lived in the Geary-Taylor Apartments in San Francisco in 1955. I did a search on that building and real estate sites list the address as on Geary Street, but Google Maps has the current address as 501 Taylor St and shows the awning with a painted 501 as the entrance on that street. The Geary side has no entrance that I could discern from the Google photos. The entire building, built in 1920, is listed for sale at Zillow for a cool $15 million. Looks like it's completely vacant and intense rehabbing was going on at one time. Have no idea if it ever was completed.

But the bookstore is much more interesting.  Shorey Book Store was at one time "The Northwest's Largest" and I have feeling it was probably the oldest when it ended business in 2000. Established in 1890 it came into life first as a magazine and cigar store. Original address was 701 Third Ave near Cherry Street.  According to a brief history I found online the store moved several times in its 110 year existence. The address on the receipt states 815 Third Ave (its third location) which is now the Flamingo Terrace Apartments. The bookstore's final location in 1995 was on Fremont.  It closed five years later.

There are several photographs of the store that pop up all over the internet. The earliest, taken circa 1895, can be found at the MOHAI photo archive site.  I found one rather good one (at left) on the Seattle Public Library Digital Collections. Seems to around the same time as the date on the receipt. Not only are there many photographs at various stages in the store's life, but there are several newspaper articles and Facebook posts devoted to the store.  It was clearly a beloved store.  One article details how a customer's want list item submitted in 1971 was fulfilled in 1990. That's dedication! Such devotion to customers simply does not exist in our world anymore.

Acquisition Madness, part 2

Here's part 2 of the books I purchased during the summer.  Plus the best of the vintage paperbacks I picked up yesterday afternoon on the first day of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference Book Sale.  Lovely sunny autumn day to be down in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, about 20 miles south from our condo way up in Rogers Park.

The top half shows a collection of hardbacks with DJs we bought at the fabulous Jackson Books in Omaha, Nebraska.  The only reason we visited Omaha was to see the new exhibits at the very impressively designed zoo. Then we investigated the restaurant scene and by chance found Jackson Books nestled in a bustling and touristy entertainment district. Nebraska is also one of the states I'd never visited. Every summer for the past ten years we try to visit at least two new states. Last year we knocked off Kansas from that list. Six left (Wyoming, Idaho, Vermont, West Virginia, and the Dakotas) and I'll have been to all 50 states in the country.

Click to enlarge the paperback photos for more detail.

Late Summer Acquisition Madness, part 1

Looking over Tracy's post at Bitter Tea and Mystery about her book finds from the Planned Parenthood Sale she attended got me thinking of the bags of books I acquired over the summer. Here's a collection of what I picked up in a midsummer trip to Nashville a while ago. This is a mix of hardcovers with jackets, one vintage book from 1919, and several vintage paperbacks.

The hardcover mysteries were all purchased at BookMan BookWoman and were on sale for $9.95 each. I could easily have spent an awful lot of money there, but I decided to restrain myself and be selective. Wild Justice (reviewed here) was also purchased with this lot. The paperbacks (shown first) all came from the Rhino Books location in the Lipscomb University neighborhood. An impressive but small vintage and collectible paperback section at that store, but on ridiculously high shelves that challenged my stretching abilities (I couldn't find a step stool1) The other Rhino Books location was closed the day we were book hunting. If ever in Nashville I highly recommend you visit these two used bookstores. Both are general used bookstores with quite a variety of fiction and non-fiction in all categories.

Above is the frontispiece from the US first edition of Something Doing (1919) by Varick Vanardy, a thriller featuring master criminal Crewe, "the Two-Faced Man." My copy has no jacket and a boring typographic cover so opted for the inside illustration by George W. Gage instead which was used to adorn the original DJ.

The next two books I bought at the Lake Forest Public Library book sale held every September. I thought I'd add them into the mix because they were rather exciting finds for me.

This is a sequel to Murder in a Nunnery which I reviewed back in 2013. I've been looking for the second title ever since. Couldn't pass up this copy (one buck!) in the scarce dust jacket even if it's chipped and torn.

Unnatural Causes, the third book in the Adam Dalgliesh series, is a rather scarce 1st American edition. The copy I found is in superior condition, with only minor creasing to the bottom of the excellent dust jacket. I got it for a mere $20. Can't help but brag about the steals I encounter in my book collecting.

Next week I'll post the books I picked up at an earlier trip to Omaha and the remainder of the books from the Lake Forest sale.

LEFT INSIDE: Celmer's Books Envelope

Another odd item I've found inside a book is this business reply envelope for a defunct used bookstore in Chicago. Celmer's was run out of a private home in the Buena Park neighborhood throughout the 60s and 70s.  When the store folded John Chandler, owner of the spectacularly messy and utterly awesome Bookman's Corner bought most of Celmer's stock. I own many vintage books from Celmer's (all purchased in John's store) and periodically I'd find one of these envelopes tucked in the back of the book.

I have no idea the purpose of the envelopes. I guess you could use them to request books from Celmer. I never asked about the use of the envelopes though John Chandler did tell me numerous stories about the woman who owned Celmer's. I've since forgotten her first name. 

The biggest mystery, however, is the Astro-Slide trademark on the envelope.

A search of the US trademark registry database reveals that Astro-Slide is a typeset trademark (basically a registered logo design) for a brand of electronically operated door mechanism. It was created and registered in 1971 and owned by a local company called Dor-o-Matic based in Harwood Heights, Illinois.  The trademark has since expired and all Dor-o-Matic products are now distributed under the brand name Falcon, a subsidiary of Allegion which is one of the largest companies involved in safety and security products (door hardware, locks of all types, burglar alarms, security systems, etc.) in the world.

But why is a used book store advertising a door mechanism on their business envelopes?

The illustration by the way is a direct copy of this famous Albrecht Dürer etching. It wasn't part of the trademark, only the font and wording was.

I don't understand the link between electronic doors and a medieval astronomer either.  Maybe I need to take more lecithin in my diet.  My brain just can't perform the kind of overtime work needed to figure out these riddles.

JACKET REQUIRED: Book Buying Binge

Throughout last month and this month I've been buying a bit more than I thought I would. Most of these were acquired for $2 or less at book sales throughout the Chicago Area. Some came from New Orleans used and antiquarian book stores when I was on vacation back in April. And a handful were purchases done over the internet from one source or another.

Click on images to enlarge. Enjoy!

Another Road Trip, Another Book Haul

The lovely mess of Choctaw Books
(rare book room through the archway at left)

Just returned last night from the annual road trip to the south. This year, at my insistence, we traveled to Florida via Mississippi and Alabama, two states I had yet to set foot in. I figured there had to be a few interesting old bookstores in Mississippi with its rich Civil War history and being the home state of several literary giants (Faulkner and Welty come immediately to mind). Well, the book hunting there was pretty darn sad for most of the time. It was only at the very last stop where everything brightened. A shop I was thinking would be mostly nonfiction based on its decidedly Native American name of Choctaw Books held a jackpot of vintage mysteries.

For those who live in the area I highly recommend Choctaw Books located at 926 North Street in Jackson, MS. The place is a chaotic mess - just the way I like used bookstores. Often you need to literally dig through some of the piles. But thankfully there was a room devoted solely to mystery books where everything was shelved alphabetically. I had little need of a shovel in there.

Below are the books I found there as well as a few choice titles picked up in Florida.