April Contest Winner!

Last Friday, we posted a contest on our Facebook page. The gist of the contest was who found the best antiquarian book bargain. We had 12 contestants. Our judges conferred and determined that Matthew Bailey is our winner! Matthew bought a first edition, first issue of Catcher in the Rye, with the original dust jacket, for 50 cents. Now that's a bargain! It was part of a box lot on eBay. Congratulations, Matthew -- on your buy, and your win. We're sending Matthew a copy of Nick Basbanes' new book, About the Author. 

Our runner-up is John Henrick, who bought a signed first edition of The Little Prince for $25 in the 1970s, which today might fetch upwards of $10,000. Our judges thought this was one great investment.

The contest was judged by two booksellers.You may recognize their names, because they post to the FB blog. ABAA bookseller Brian Cassidy works in the DC metro area, specializing in Americana & esoterica, art, photo, popular culture, Beats & NY School, little mags, small press, mimeo revolution, poetry & literature, the intrinsically interesting & unusual, vernacular, outsider, and folk books. Chris Lowenstein runs Book Hunter's Holiday in California. She specializes in Dante Alighieri (just published her first catalogue on him), as well as Western Americana, particularly books written by or about pioneer and frontier women, and children's books.

My thanks to the judges, and to everyone else for playing!