For the past several years, I have been digitally photographing various items in my books-and-manuscripts collection, mostly pre-17th-century, with one as late as 1770 and three or four others in the 17th century – but most were published or written comfortably before 1600. The books include pontificals, processionals, music books (Dowland, Morley), heraldica (Bolton, Legh, Le Feron), herbals / distillation / apothecarial recipes / cookbooks (Brunschwig’s Homish Apothecary,  Gesner’s Newe Iewell of Health), and a host of folia, bifolia, scraps of folio, documents, pamphlets, etc.

DVD’s are now available that contain the photographs. The whole set is somewhat over 50 gigabytes, and thus will not fit onto one (4.2 Gigabyte capacity) DVD. Please write (owner@potboilerpress.com) regarding which books you would like, and I will do my best to fit it or them onto the fewest number of DVD’s. Some books, and all the folia, bifolia, and ‘bits and pieces’ will fit on a data CD, which has a much lower capacity.

DVD’s will cost $3.50.

CD’s will cost $2.00.

Shipping and handling (U.S. and Canada) will be $3.00; this includes anything from one CD to the whole set of everything, to one address. Addresses in other countries, please write for a quote.

Reproduction rights are separately priced, and vary according to where the photo will appear according to usual practices; please enquire as to rates.

I should say that I photographed the books under less than ideal conditions; while everything is readable, the color is often unnatural, and often only the text block is photographed rather than the whole page. Thus the current photos are better for textual rather than codicological studies.

My suspicions are aroused:

First Email from Somewhere in Australia, unedited except for weird punctuation  replacements (ASCII numbers rather than the actual punctuation, for example), and [space]period[space] replaced by eliminating the first space):

Hello Sales i would like to order some product from your store to mine in australia. so let me know if can ship down to australia so that i can email you the product i am interested in. also Payment will be done via credit card details if you do accept that let me know so that i can place my order and the Items will be picked Up by my shipping Company at you store, please Get back to me so that i can email you the items i am interested .address:

I wrote back saying I did not take credit cards, but go ahead and place the order. The Buyer wrote back with a list of four books (all from the first page of the Used Books – Miscellaneous listing), and requested a Total Cost without shipping charges. I sent the Total Cost.

Buyer wrote back, wanting to know how much 20 copies (Total Cost) of each would be; I responded I didn’t have 20 copies, as they were used books and I stocked only single copies (save in very rare circumstances).

Buyer wrote back again, and wanted to know how much the Total Cost would be for one copy of each – which I’d already sent, two? three? emails before. I said as much, but just in case I included the Total Cost (previously sent).

…..and then this arrived:

I’m ready to pay the bills send me an invoice via mail and i will email you my Credit Card. But i just got a response from my shipping Agent that he cannot receive payment via credit or debit card from me at the moment. So i want you to help me Charge another $850.00 to a shipping agent who is going to pick up my ordered items from you and Some of Our Items Order in Canada.

The $850.00 that will be sent to the shipping agent is for the shipping of my order plus other items i ordered from different countries which will be deduct from my credit card.Also, I’m compensating you with the sum of $150.00 for the transfer fee and for your efforts.. Please note that i should have given the shipping agency my credit card for him to deduct the shipping funds but he told me that he doesn’t have the facilities to charge or debit credit card,so that’s why i bring my vote of confidence in you and i don’t want you to betray the vote of confidence i put in you, so i want you to transfer the funds to him after you have make the charges and the money charged from my credit card is in your account, then you can now make the transfer to the agent via western union. i will have love to do this my self but there no western union here around me, So the charges you’ll make on my credit card will be:

Order Fee ( AUS$125.54)

Agent fee with shipping fare ( $850.00 )

Transfer Fee plus Your Compensation ( $150.00 )

Total:(AUS$1125.54)

Note that my credit card will be charged for the amounts above.Please do get back to me if you are in the office right now so that i can forward my credit card details to you , then you can charge full amount and transfer the agent funds to him via western union or money gramm. await to read from you if you can assist me .

….despite the fact I’d said I didn’t accept credit cards.

So, is this person a real customer, or is this a scam of some sort?

For a good-sized SCA event whose primary purpose is buying and selling (say, Calontir’s Kris Kinder in early December, or Atlantia’s Harvest Faire in late November), a day or two before I leave I get together:

1. One cash box, of suitable design and wood construction.

In this box goes paper money: a few twenties, a few more tens, not so many fives, and quite a few ones.

Also, hard money: quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, in the ratio of three quarters to two dimes to one nickel to four pennies. (Think about it: when you receive change back, any given change will include no more than three quarters (or you’d be getting a dollar back), two dimes (or you’d be getting a quarter back), one nickel (dime back), and/or four pennies (nickel back). It took me six or seven years of selling at events to figure this out,

I also put two calculators (in case one doesn’t work, or both my Lovely Sales Assistant and I have customers at the same time; at least one should be battery-powered, as some buildings don’t have enough ambient light to run a solar-powered calculator), at least one book of blank receipts (preferably two), several pens, a pad or two of sticky-notes, tax rate cards for whatever Missouri county I’m in (if the event is not in Missouri, no sales tax – they could be considered “out-of-state mail-order” sales.), business cards, at least one (perhaps two) clip boards, various announcements (“make checks payable to……today’s date is December Forty-Eleven….Discounts on new books!”), a couple of lists of what books are being offered for sale.

2. Several boxes of books, said boxes being of various sizes and materials.

I’ve been using spare cardboard boxes for years, but they deteriorate, and difficult to lift off the ground and to carry – and if one splits open, I’m up the creek. Recently, I’ve been trying to get plastic milk-carton boxes. They seem to be rare, now: in the last three months, I’ve managed to buy two, and I’ve been to WalMart, Lowe’s, at least three different locally managed Ace Hardware stores, Home Depot….

Why not regular plastic containers? I prefer putting books into boxes with straight sides, 90-degree corners, of a size not too large (books are heavy!), and with handles that don’t stick out. Milk cartons fit the bill, and they fit into a car very neatly with little lost space.

3. What books?

Depends on the event. I’ve gone to some that are arts-and-sciences oriented, which means painting techniques, fiber books, calligraphy and illumination books, embroidery books, cooking books – but nothing on fighting techniques or heraldry. Events oriented toward the scribal arts get C&I, papermaking, bookbinding, and a lot more used books (of which I have a multitude oriented toward C&I, for some odd reason). A general event (like Kris Kinder or Harvest Faire) get all the above plus armoring, swordsmanship, archery, chivalric-behavior stuff, and miscellaneous other items.

4. Manuscripts.

These are for show, not for sale; they’re there to draw people to the booth. (“Ohhh! He’s got real medieval documents!”…and they stay around, talk, and look through the books for sale….) Which ones are pretty much at whim. Sometimes I’ll take a couple of small portfolios filled with small manuscripts; sometimes two small and one large; sometimes just one large with a broad selection. Sometimes books, too, although lately not so much: I don’t want to put too much stress-and-strain on the bindings.

5. Stuff.

Clothing, of course; for SCA events, I also need to remember to take leather boots or sandals (depending on the weather), appropriate historical clothing (one or two good t-tunics, brays, belt, pouch), and a good warm cloak if it’s not high summer.

A sign. The one I’ve been using for well over a decade has the logo (a black pot over a fire, with a hand holding a book emerging from the pot), and “Potboiler Press” above and “Alban St . Albans, Prop.” below. It never hurts to remind people which booth they’re at, even though most of the time I’m the only person selling new books. (The one exception has been Pennsic, but that’s an unusually large event.)

Bookends. I forgot to take bookends to the most recent SCA event, and books fell over at regular intervals.

6. What I should take, if I remember and if there’s enough space in the car.

Comfortable chairs suitable for a person with a bad back. Tables of the small-side-table type (the tables the books are on often don’t have enough space for a coffee cup, much less space to write receipts on or for the cash box, which gets put on a chair, or milk carton, or the floor, all three of which are at best awkward). Table coverings. A mug or two, ditto. A small amount of mid-afternoon snack food (mixed nuts, a piece of fruit or two, a granola bar).

In addition to the used books for sale through the online catalog, we also offer the following magazines (calligraphic, typographical, biblioartistic, and generally book- or writing-related). Please contact us at the usual address (owner@potboilerpress.com) if you would like to buy any or all of them.

Calligraphy Idea Exchange ISSN 0737-318X, Oklahoma City, OK)
Volume 2, no. 2 (no date); Volume 2, no. 4 (no date)   $15.00

Calligraphy Review, Norman, Oklahoma; ISSN 0895-7819
Vol. 10, no. 1, Fall 1992   $12.00
Vol. 10, no. 4, Summer 1993   $12.00

The Colophon: A Book Collectors Quarterly. Part 9. New York, 1932. (Contents: Mabbott and Silver, Mr. Whitman Reconsiders; Ferguson, Death by Spontaneous Combustion; Bass, Talking Stones; Currie, Hints for Tarkingonians; Smith, Crab-Apples – a Woodcut; Coolidge, How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!; Victorious, A Sketch on the Origin of Species; Vail, A Curtain Call for Benjamin Gomez; Adler, So You’re a Collector!)    $100.00

Fine Print: A Review for the Arts of the Book – $10 per issue
Volume 2, nos. 2 (April 1976)
Volume 4, nos. 2 (April 1978), 4 (October 1978)
Volume 7, nos. 1 (January 1981), 2 (April 1981), 3 (July 1981), 4 (October 1981)
Volume 8, nos. 1 (January 1982), 2 (April 1982), 3 (July 1982), 4 (October 1982) (2 copies)
Volume 9, nos. 1 (January 1983, 2, (April 1983), 3 (July 1983) 4 (October 1984)
Volume 10, nos. 1 (January 1984), 2 (April 1984), 3 (July 1984)
Volume 11, nos. 1 (January 1985), 2 (April 1985), 3 (July 1985)
Volume 12, nos. 1 (January 1986), 3 (July 1986)
Volume 13, no. 4 (October 1987)
Volume 15, no. 2 (April 1989)
Fine Print II, January – April 1984, April – July 1984
Fine Print, volume 4, no. 2 (April 1978), illustrative supplement. Hand Bookbinding Today: An International Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, March – May 1978.

Monotype Recorder,  published by the Monotype Corporation Ltd. Of London.
Volume 36, no. 1, Spring 1937 (Contents: Batey, The Organisation of a ‘Monotype’ Machine Department; Frank Hinman Pierpont,  a Memoir and a Tribute; Technical Articles: Maintenance of Temperature of Metal and Moulds; Alexander Mackie and his Rotary Steam Composing Machine; Black Letter – its Origin & Current Usage)   $20.00

Signature, A Quadrimestrial of Typography and Graphic Arts, edited by Oliver Simon. New Series no. 5, 1948. London. (Contents: Wardrop, The Vatican Scriptors: Documents for Ruano and Cresci; del Renzio, Karel Svolinsky; McLean, Printers’ Type-Specimen Books in England, 1920-40; Carter, Johannes Enschedé: Postscript; Book Review – Processes of Graphic Reproduction in Printing, reviewed by Michael Rothenstein) $85.00

Signature, A Quadrimestrial of Typography and Graphic Arts, edited by Oliver Simon. New Series no. 10, 1950. (Contents: Rollins, Theodore Low de Vinne; Johnson, A Catalogue of Italian Writing-Books of the Sixteenth Century; Howe, Bibliotheca Typographica)   $45.00

Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, issued quarterly. New Series, Volume 3, no. 1, June 1922. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Contents: Jenkinson, Elizabethan Handwritings, a Preliminary Sketch; Moore Smith, The Refusal of Ye Hand, a Mock-heroical Poem; Plomer, Richard Pynson, Glover and Printer)   $25.00

Visible Language: The Research Journal Concerned with All That is Involved in Our Being Literate. ISSN 0022-2224.
Volume 13, no. 3, 1979 (2 copies)  $10.00
Volume 17, no. 1. Winter 1983.   $10.00