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One of Britain's largest stocks of second-hand books ever amassed
81 diaphanous 17 9/1/2025, 5:25:08 PM worldofinteriors.com ↗
https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/collections/incunabula
I think Ebay was the beginning of the end. Most books in the past ~100 years were printed in substantial press runs, and many had reprints. That meant they were not globally rare, just widely scattered. Ebay revealed their vast numbers and a level marketplace emerged. Books dealers snagged the truly rare and the vast bulk went unwanted and unread. As a Northern claim staker and mine engineer, I often passed by the Highway Bookstore, in Cobalt Ontario
https://www.highwaybooks.ca/
I wish I could get rid of them all; when I want to read one again I just pirate a scan. I've literally thought about tightly wrapping them in plastic and burying them in a concrete vault. After the original texts of all "legacy" writing have been deemed too provocative, somebody could discover them and dig them up, show their friends how they've been changed since everything went digital, and shortly afterwards get arrested as a terrorist pornographer.
Any library can be described as a second hand store of books and it seems this one is pretty large!
"I wish I could get rid of them all"
You could donate them to the really weird collectors - see OP!
I used to have quite a large collection of CDs (and tapes but they are mostly buggered). It took quite a while to rip them to FLAC but they now take up quite a small amount of disc compared to photos and the rest. A terabyte is not particularly large these days.
"terrorist pornographer" - that is quite a job title.
We have also already traversed, unwittingly, into a post-ownership world and the IP issue would need to be dealt with since it was not dealt with to this point and the thieves have gotten away with robbery by default. Books were one of the first steps into a world where you do not own anything you buy, you merely possess it until the IP owner decides to revoke their authority for everything you think you own. I recall the ironic incident in around 2013 where Amazon without permission simply deleted people’s copies of a purchased book from their Kindles due to some IP dispute with a publisher, without even providing notice. The book … 1984, by George Orwell.
It is why in understand if people “pirate” or maybe better put, seize their rights.
Something you cannot share, trade, exchange, gift, pass down, sell, or often even move… is not something you own.
Sounds a good price, no?
His worst fear resonates with me: if the collection is separated, all his collecting was basically a waste of time and effort. I share similar thoughts: how to avoid that the collection gets ripped apart upon my departure? How to ascertain continuity (if now growth, at least at the status quo level)? Where should bet books be located so as to maximize utility? And, worst of all, how to stop the decay in people's willingness to read books for curiosity's and knowledge's sake? Move the books somewhere else where knowlege is not taken for granted (e.g. Africa)?