Poppy

I have written about my grandfather often here on the blog. You can find some of those posts here, here, here and here. He was a collector at heart. Autographs, model trains, baseball cards, toy banks, stamps, books - you name it, he had a pile.

I came across a copy of Charles Lindbergh's "We" this morning, and found this letter inside:

So many pieces here. My grandfather was an avid Lindbergh collector, with several signed pieces and hundreds of books. He was also professed to know the real story of the Lindbergh kidnapping, though those details were never related to me.

The letter is also a nostalgic reminder of the way the used book business used to operate; lots and lots of correspondence. A letter to inquire about the availability of a book, a reply to indicate that it is available along a with a quoted price, another reply with payment and finally the book would be dispatched. I still remember our family selling books in the fashion. There was a brief period where we would ship out floppy disks with our entire catalog attached, but it wasn't long before we started listing online and via email. And so the world was changed.

It's also fascinating to note that the letter comes from the famous Strand Bookstore in New York, with a typed signature of the founder Benjamin Bass.

So glad I found this.

-Click to enlarge photos-