Good Reading

[G S Haydon]

I have just power read

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Is-Genuine-Iden ... th+century


For the princely sum of £0.01p + postage I have been able to digest fantastic information in a conversational but informative style. I'm sure the 18th Centrury style is not everyones cup of tea but this book offers you so much more than that. The author is a trained cabinet maker who wrights in a lucid manner that really gets the pages turning.

If anyone is looking for a step outside of their normal reading comfort zone I urge you to push the button and hopefully enjoy it as much as I did.

 

[jimi43]

Cheers mate!

Got one for 1p...fantastic...was looking for books for my daughter for her to put in her Georgian cottage.

Perfect!

=D> =D>

Jimi

 

[JIJ]

ordered a copy, thanks very much for the tip.

James

 

[G S Haydon]

No problem,the "introduction" and "part one" are some of the most enjoyable reading I've digested for some time. It felt like having a chat with an old craftsman.

 

[JIJ]

sounds great. Hopefully it's a similar vibe to The Village Carpenter by Walter Rose, one of my favourite books.

Has anyone read Good Neighbours? It's the sequel to The Village Carpenter but I'm not sure if there's any woodwork in it?

James

 

[jimi43]

sounds great. Hopefully it's a similar vibe to The Village Carpenter by Walter Rose, one of my favourite books.

Has anyone read Good Neighbours? It's the sequel to The Village Carpenter but I'm not sure if there's any woodwork in it?

James

+1 Lovely book...not read the sequel....interested now!

Jimi

 

[bugbear]

sounds great. Hopefully it's a similar vibe to The Village Carpenter by Walter Rose, one of my favourite books.

Has anyone read Good Neighbours? It's the sequel to The Village Carpenter but I'm not sure if there's any woodwork in it?

James

Not much, apparently.

http://accidentalwoodworker.blogspot.co ... -rose.html

But plenty more "Village".

EDIT; just ordered it

BugBear

 

[jimi43]

I have just power read

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Is-Genuine-Iden ... th+century


For the princely sum of £0.01p + postage I have been able to digest fantastic information in a conversational but informative style. I'm sure the 18th Centrury style is not everyones cup of tea but this book offers you so much more than that. The author is a trained cabinet maker who wrights in a lucid manner that really gets the pages turning.

If anyone is looking for a step outside of their normal reading comfort zone I urge you to push the button and hopefully enjoy it as much as I did.

I bought this for my daughter...for a penny (plus £100 postage! NAH! JOKE!)...and it arrived this morning and it is so darn good I had to have one for myself!

Cost me £5.25 this time but well worth every penny and more.

Highly recommended...only scanned the pictures and read the front bit and hooked! Can't wait to read the whole thing...most excellent and huge thanks for the pointer GS!

Cheers

Jimi

 

[JIJ]

+1.Great book so far. Thanks for the recommendation.
James

 

[undergroundhunter]

Ordered my copy the other day £0.15 + postage = bargain.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Matt

 

[AndyT]

Coming a bit late to this one, but I have now followed your tip and bought a copy which has now arrived and been read. Thanks for the suggestion GS - I enjoyed it and had not come across it before.

I was especially struck by some of the numbers discussed, showing that there is far more "18th century furniture" sloshing about the antique trade than could have been made in the 18th century.

I suggest that anyone who liked this book would also like "Antique or Fake" by Charles Hayward. There is surprisingly little overlap between the two books. Hayward does not write so much about faking but gives a very readable summary of the history of furniture - always concentrating on the interesting question of how each design was constructed. The implication is of course that if you understand what genuine old furniture looks like, you will be able to spot a fake yourself. It includes interesting digessions such as Sheraton's method for making wide cornice mouldings, a marquetry cutter's donkey and a Tunbridge ware maker's hand powered wooden circular saw.

Once you have that book, you will probably also want Hayward's "English Period Furniture" which covers a lot of the same ground but with surprisingly little overlap. In that book too, he approaches historical design from the point of view of someone wanting to know how to make things.

At the back of that book there are a few measured drawings of historical examples. For a much wider selection, without repeats, you'll want Hayward's later book "Period Furniture Designs" which covers 41 specific pieces, plus diagrams of construction techniques and mouldings.

Fortunately, it does include some designs for bookcases!

 

[Harbo]

You started a "rush" - I got a pristine copy for under £5 - thanks for the heads-up

Rod.

 

[jimi43]

I can just imagine a warehouse full of these and some sales bloke saying "there is no way anyone's going to buy this book...sheessh! Sell 'em for a penny and let's get rid of 'em!"

He never met us lot before!! :mrgreen:

Jimi

 

[Harbo]

At 0.01p and reasonable postage cost - how can they do it?
I've always been a bit suspicious in the past and gone for the ones costing a bit more?

Rod

 

[AndyT]

At 0.01p and reasonable postage cost - how can they do it?
I've always been a bit suspicious in the past and gone for the ones costing a bit more?

Rod

It works as a business model if you can buy, store, catalogue and despatch a book for less than the standard £2.80 postage charge - which with the right software and control over operating costs is clearly possible. (And you need to sell some books for a lot more - but automated book pricing software takes the skill out of spotting the really valuable rarities.)

One of the biggest outfits doing this is "World of Books" in Sussex - there's a 2009 Telegraph article about them here which explains their business model. They buy surplus books from charity shops at £75 per tonne, list them into a database and post them out to customers.
They also sell wholesale through http://www.usedwholesalebooks.co.uk should you want to buy books by the pallet load for your own shop or stall.

What still fails to sell gets pulped to make cardboard.

It does sound like a worthwhile operation and looks a better option than just pulping indiscriminately. This link gives their own description of what they do.

There's a similar operation near Bristol at http://www.bookbarninternational.com/ - two big barns with millions of old books and more coming in by the pallet load every day. I have a few gems from their 'everything a pound' publicly accessible barn.

 

[Harbo]

Thanks for the info Andy - I'll be less wary now.
Our local Oxfam Shop is very aware of rarity values on books and especially Vinyl LPs

Rod

 

[Bod]

Ordered.
Thanks for the heads up.

Bod

 

[G S Haydon]

Andy, thanks for expanding on the content. I'm sure it'll help temp others too. Thanks also for those other recommendations, I will be ordering them very soon.
Very good to know people have enjoyed it

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Thanks Graham and Andy - I've just placed an order through abebooks.co.uk for Crawley's tome and all three Haywards for just under £20 including postage. I was amazed how cheap the Hayward books were - about £2 each plus postage!

 

[G S Haydon]

I just did the same CC. The first two hayward were £2.81 inc postage, £5.60 + postage on the last. I look forward to getting hold of them. Cheers Andy!