Antiquarian Bookplates: 55 Bookplates to Personalize Your Library

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We discussed the general timeline of bookplates and their rise in popularity. According to Mr. Jaffe, bookplates surged in popularity at the end of the 1800s and early 1900s. During this time, the middle class began to grow. Many in the new class wanted to emulate the manners of old money families. Coupled with a shift to more affordable engraving techniques, bookplates surged in popularity, not only as collector’s items but also for personal libraries. Mr. Jaffe’s sense is that it was “like a tulip craze.” This is because “Americans had lots and lots of money, and the people in the UK had been hard pressed for cash for a variety of reasons, so Americans would come over and buy the contents of a castle, such as the books. And they would start emulating the English.” He notes that he has collected many bookplates from silent era movie stars who hopped onto the trend. As to whether it makes a difference, well, that depends. If you’re collecting just for your own pleasure and it doesn’t bother you, then no problem. If you’re buying for resale, it might make some difference as books with signed book plates sometimes (not always) sell for less than actual signed books. (Some collectors like the idea that the book was at some point in the author’s hands.) So let's take a decade a month. That should give you plenty of time to haunt your charity shops and see if there's anything you fancy adding to your own Home Library. Bookplates often bear a motif relating to the book's owner, such as a coat-of-arms, crest, badge, motto, or a design commissioned from an artist or designer. [5] [6] [7] The name of the owner usually follows an inscription such as "from the books of..." or "from the library of...", or in Latin, " ex libris". Bookplates are important evidence for the provenance of books.

RBSC Bookplates". The University of British Columbia Library: Open Collections. University of British Columbia.The fabulous woodcut design bookplate above was found in a 1935 edition of The Plays of Anton Chekhov. From the beginning of the 19th century, no special style of decoration seems to have established itself. The immense majority of examples display a plain shield of arms with motto on a scroll, and crest on a fillet. At the turn of the 20th century, however, bookplate design diversified and flourished beyond traditional armorials. [20] The earliest known marks of ownership of books or documents date from the reign of Amenophis III in Egypt (1391−1353 BCE). [9] [10] Since bookplates were primarily used to reflect ownership, they often included a family crest or coat of arms. Artists sometimes inscribed these by hand or made a woodcut or engraving to transfer their designs, as Dürer is known for.

Although the current pandemic has halted many in-person gatherings, book signings have thankfully continued on through the use of bookplates! Mr. Jaffe believes that the Depression also played a role in the decline of bookplates because “people by and large who used bookplates were well-to-do people, [and] it was the Wall Street crash and Depression, so people were not spending money as much, even rich people. And the bookplate artists are people who made a full-time living with bookplates and their livelihood dried up, such as restaurant owners right now during the pandemic.” But despite their decline, Mr. Jaffe points out that “when I was younger, they had the television became popular, and people were saying…the radio is gonna disappear, which never happened. And it’s the same with bookplates—there’s fewer people reading hardbound books, but there are still people who love bookplates.” Collecting Bookplates And Collecting History A signed bookplate (signed by the author), is quite desirable but will add a little less to the value of the book than if the author had signed directly on the book. Does the location of a bookplate matter? The Chekov book itself, published by Three Swans Press, is illustrated with wonderful woodcuts by Howard Simon.) Author-signed bookplatesThe bookplate above is an example of an author-signed bookplate, which is attached to the front free endpaper of a review copy of Ray Manzarek’s book, Light My Fire. The difference between ex-library & ex libris books | AbeBooks' Reading Copy". www.abebooks.com . Retrieved 2018-08-06. Bookplates are especially useful when paired with virtual events. You can offer to send signed bookplates to a bookstore in advance of an event, ensuring that each attendee has access to a signed copy. Some bookplates were issued by institutions, often religious ones, which awarded books to individuals to recognise achievements such as academic performance and good behaviour. These would be inscribed with the name of the individual by hand. Such plates could be very elaborate, or very simple in their design, reflecting the character of the awarding institution. [19] Many bookplates are known as ex-libris, or a book owner’s identification. In other words, these are bookplates that indicate the owner of the book. Many notable historical figures have also been book collectors, and as such, a book containing one of their bookplates can have great value. Other bookplates might not refer to a particularly notable person, but the ex-libris bookplate might have such a fascinating or unique design that it is of great value on its own.

O'Hagen, Lauren (2020). "Social Posturing in the Edwardian Book Plate, 1901-1915, The Book Collector 60 no. 4 (winter): 662-672. Johnston, Alastair. "Bookplates in a Printer's Library, Part I". Booktryst . Retrieved 3 November 2017. It’s best just to leave it be. Removal attempts usually don’t turn out well & the resulting blemish would detract from the book’s value more than the bookplate does. Bookplate collectingWhether a previous owner’s, or signed, bookplates do have an impact on book values; the amount depends on the particular bookplate’s characteristics and the book in question. Adding a signature to a book helps to bridge the gap between the author and the reader. The personal connections made during a book event or book signing can turn even a casual reader into a lifelong fan of an author’s work. always be accurate, especially as regards dating of bookplates, their condition and the attribution of ownership. I still cringe when I think about loaning a friend my copy of “The Fault in Our Stars” in middle school. As I handed over the book, she asked me, Can I use highlighter in this? The audacity.

Since the 1950s, there has been a renewed interest in the collection of bookplates and in many ways a reorientation of this interest. There are still substantial numbers of collectors for whom the study of bookplates spanning 500 years is a fascinating source of historical, artistic and socio-cultural interest. They have however been joined by a now dominant group of new collectors whose interest is more than anything the constitution—at quite reasonable cost—of a miniature, personalized art-print collection. In this miniature art museum, they gather together the works of their favorite artists. They commission numbered and signed editions of bookplates to their name which are never pasted into books but only serve for exchange purposes. When asked how the pandemic has affected his ability to collect, he says that while it has been difficult to focus, he has still been able to buy from a lot of collections. Enough that he added, “I won’t live long enough to sort through all these collections.”In 1901–1903, the British Museum published the catalog of the 35,000 bookplates collected by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826–97). If an ex-library book should come into the hands of a collector, the bookplate probably will be a lesser concern than the damage & (probably) numerous other library markings typical of such books. Some collectors attempt to acquire plates of all kinds (for example, the collection of Irene Dwen Andrews Pace, now at Yale University, comprising 250,000 items). Other collectors prefer to concentrate on bookplates in special fields—for example, coats of arms, pictures of ships, erotic plates, chess pieces, legal symbols, scientific instruments, signed plates, proof-plates, dated plates, plates of celebrities, or designs by certain artists. It’s safe to say that early iterations of the bookplate were more practical than ornamental. Later on, however, these inscriptions developed into elaborate artistic expressions, as wealthy patrons commissioned designs from famous contemporary artists. Take a look at this bookplate designed by Albrecht Dürer (circa the late 15th or early 16th century) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/387572 Meier, Allison (2014-11-18). "19th and 20th–Century Bookplates as Deeply Personal Brands of the Home Library". Hyperallergic . Retrieved 2020-08-05.