Parking Lot Sale! July 26/27th! Friday and Saturday for the Division/Clinton Street Fair!

After much back and forth we have finally decided to hold a parking lot sale this weekend to unburden ourselves of the books that have been cluttering the store.  We know that many of you love the clutter so rest assured that there will still be some, just not enough to inhibit you from seeing all of the titles on the shelves.  We plan on having 30-50 boxes of books, so between 800-1000 ranging from paperbacks to hardbacks of all kinds, including some oversized coffee table books. 

Sale will be held in the parking lot of Longfellow's Books.  1401 SE Division St.

11-4 PM Friday, July 26th and Saturday, July 27th.  

 

Regular paperbacks are $2 Friday and $1 Saturday.

Hardbacks/Oversized PBs are $4 Friday and $2 Saturday.

Oversized HBs/Coffee Tables books are $6 Friday and $3 Saturday.  

Thanks for looking and we hope that this finds you well. 

Best rare bookstore in the Northwest

That is a bold claim, and not one that we take lightly.  The title of this post was chosen to encourage people to read further however we have reason to be able to make the claim- this year we have successfully sold 4 separate books for more than $5,000 for customers, procured higher prices for those items than could be expected at auction/had they been sold by nearly any other seller and paid the owner's of said items more than could be expected if their books had sold anywhere else.  We do so by providing our customers with the highest level of customer service and knowledge of the books we sell, by listing and describing them to the best of our abilities, and by dealing directly with the rare book buyer rather than using a middle man or auction house. 

In the past we have dealt directly with Bauman Rare Books and Whitmore Rare Books, sold items to significant collectors worldwide and sold books on consignment for higher prices than most others would expect.  We mentioned the King Solomon's Mines in a previous post and which has now been sold, and we have now sold 2 copies of the edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland signed and illustrated by Salvador Dali which were also previously mentioned. 

Of course this is all to say please contact us if you have something which is truly rare and we will give you our honest opinion of that item's saleability and whether or not we think we would be the proper bookstore for your collection.  We are most interested in books valued at over $2,500 or special collections which are significant, though we will make offers on items that are less valuable if they are rare and desirable enough to interest us.  Again, we are a family owned business with between 35 and 40 years of experience between the two of us, and we do everything we can to ensure that those who deal with us are entirely satisfied.  Please contact us at

longfellowspdx (at) comcast (dot) net
or
503 239-5222

Thanks again and we hope that this finds you well.

New Books of 2012

Many moons later, we reappear.  We have been having a decent year in 2012, with some high end books coming through the store and some of them even leaving our possession.  We have dealt in signed and illustrated Salvador Dali books and lithographs, had a great book fair (thank you to everyone who came to visit us at the Double Tree Lloyd Center) and now have some wonderful books in the store in consignment, including another copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland signed and illustrated by Dali, a First Printing/State of one of the seminal adventures novels- King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard- and various other books.  I will come back to visit the blog every once in a while and feel free to contact us about either of these books or anything else.  The Dali book is priced at $10,000 and the Haggard at $7,500.  Both are in exceptionally nice condition and wonderful finds for any collector of either man's work.

Books of the Month - Sold on Commission: Brian Walton's "London" 17th Century Polyglot Bible

We have been honored to be contacted by some new friends of the store who have entrusted us to sell their rare and significant Bibles from the 16th and 17th centuries.  We thank this wonderful couple for entrusting us with their treasured possessions and for agreeing to allow us to sell their books on commission.  We are normally reluctant to take books on commission because it can be a vexing process for both buyer and seller, however in this case it's been a wonderful opportunity for us to deal in some of the finest printed matter in the world.

That being said, we recently sold an incredible set of Brian Walton's Biblia Sacra Polyglotta dating from 1654-1657.  These six volumes comprise one of the most significant polyglot (multi-language) Bibles of the Early Modern Period/Era because they were the first to include Ethiopic and Persian.  These volumes contain the translation of the Bible in 9! languages commonly used in the 17th century.  The set we sold was in need of re-binding but contained all all 2,938 leaves originally printed.  The first volume also contained the most beautiful plates I have seen in the seven years I have been directly dealing with books.  Some photos are attached below.  Again, these books were an incredible glimpse into a different era of human history and we were fortunate and honored to have been entrusted in the task of selling them for their rightful owners.  We are happy to say that they have been sold to a very serious Bible collector and scholar and we thank all of the parties involved in the transaction.

If you have any questions about the books or would like to discuss the sale of books you own please feel free to contact us directly at longfellowspdx@comcast.net  Thanks again for visiting and Happy Holidays!

New Book of the Month

I think that once a month I will post photos and a description of one of the most interesting books we have in the store, and here is the first of those descriptions.

We recently acquired a book which made my Father swoon, as it is absolutely of his generation.  A couple brought in a copy of "George Gershwin's Song-Book", which is a great book for us to have in any state, but this copy is quite special.  It was owned by a Hollywood songwriter who won multiple Oscars for his movie scores.  During the course of his life he acquired this book, which was signed by George Gershwin himself, along with the famous illustrator Constantin Alajalov (who added a whimsical face next to his signature) to Lucia Davidova, who was one of the closest friends of both the choreographer George Balanchine and the composer Igor Stravinsky.  This is a marvelous piece of American musical history, and quite a find for us.  The dustjacket is in poor condition but almost impossible to find regardless, which is just the icing on the cake.

We are happy to deal in books which are rare and significant and hope that you will stop by to visit and perhaps even purchase one of them soon.  Please also contact us regarding any books you have to sell, particularly the rare and unusual, though we must admit that we will be more selective for now since we have been purchasing quite a bit of late.  Thank you very much for looking.

Amazing Car Brochures from the 1920s-50s

We now have an incredible collection of vintage car brochures dating from the 1920s-50s.  There are two full boxes of material, most of which are for American brands of the day including Ford, Buick, Chevrolet and many "orphans" such as Hupmobile, Jordan and many others.  Please take a look at the photos below- these are fascinating for me to look at and would be for anyone interested in vintage printing techniques or those involved in advertising and messaging- the graphics and copy are incredible.  Thanks for looking and feel free to come by to take a look, though we recommend you let us know if you are coming as they aren't on display for everyone to see.

Please leave us a (hopefully positive) review!

As the retail world has changed with the advent of the internet, we have done our best to make ourselves visible to the bibliophiles around us.  We have been successful in getting our website listed towards the top of results for used and rare bookstores here in Portland, but it would really help us if those of you who have visited our store could leave us positive reviews- they will register with Google and other search engines and help provide us with a stronger online presence, which in turn means that we will have better books and more customers to interact with on a day to day basis (that's a good thing).  Please let us know if you have any questions for us, and if you've had a negative experience with us feel free to contact us to let us know, as we do our best to be civil and helpful with everyone who walks through our doors.  Most of the time we do even better than that.  In any case, we hope that this finds you well and thanks for looking. 

You can leave those reviews at Insider Pages or at Google or places like Yelp; any others would be great too.  Thanks again.