REVIEW: PRICE-CODES OF THE BOOK-TRADE

Jackson, Ian. The Price-Codes of the Book-Trade: A Preliminary Guide by EXHUMATION. Berkeley: Ian Jackson, 2010.

A few months ago sitting around the cataloguing table at work, I listened as a specialist from Sotheby’s held court, looking over a few new additions to stock. The man could date a velvet binding from Rome by means I hadn’t thought of: running his fingers over nail holes he could feel under the endpapers, he could tell they were much too narrow to have been made before 1600. Notes toward a History of Hammering? A book or two later he skipped through the text to scrutinize penciled-in letters in the back that seemed to make no sense: “Ah! King Alfred!” he said, “A Quaritch purchase in the 19th century!” At that point his enthusiasm when from shared to mysterious.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago at the San Francisco Book Fair: I noticed many fellow exhibitors (or ‘dealers’ which I prefer: ‘So are you a dealer?’ folks asked earnestly) carrying around a booklet with a jumble of words on its cover: MOTHERFUCK sticking out to me first, as well as THE PRICE-CODES OF THE BOOK-TRADE. Finally the time came when one was given to me, and since cursory searches on the internet have yielded no results for this book I thought I’d make it a small contribution.

Old prices never die: they advance to another astral plane, perceptible only to the initiate. Bookselling is, after all, a trade with a few ancillary pleasures, and not a philanthropic system of redistribution. Prices paid or charged are never entirely incidental, although one need not take them too seriously. Their elasticity ensures that one man’s retail price is another man’s wholesale.

Following the introduction, Ian Jackson (author of The Key to Serendipity: How to Buy Books in Spite of Peter Howard) lists 115 codes, past and present, that booksellers have inscribed into their books– all by way of keeping record of the price originally paid for the book.

How does a price-code work? “[T]he orthodox price-code consists of a series of non-repeating letters (usually a proper name or memorable word) that may be used to correspond to certain numbers (usually 1-9).” Sometimes things get more complicated, for instance where Serendipity books uses a code with symbols for figures in the 10s and 100s, but Jackson takes the time to explain this, and his useful little pamphlet is the only compilation of codes and their meanings that has ever been produced. This is not a subject that even the most in-depth volumes on the history of the Book-Trade or Auctions Houses or the sassiest Bibliomemoir has broached.

The insert tells me that it’s been produced in a run of 500 (at Jackson’s expense with 42-Line), for $10/copy, $5 if you’re in the trade, and additional copies at $5. Postage is $1 within the US, $3 without, and Jackson promises that a free copy of the next edition will be sent to anyone who happens to contribute additions or corrections. Contact jancosinka[AT]gmail.com. My thought is, it’s well worth it.

As for the emboldened MOTHERFUCK on the cover? It refers to a price-code employed by R & J Balding (Edinburgh), and in the entry Jackson relates an anecdote:

Spike Hughs writes (27th May, 2010): ‘In my time at R & J Balding, the code was a source of great amusement when the day came that John Price had to explain it to our very nice but rather prim secretary…’

Finally is it just me or does Jackson’s latest also have excellent repercussions for the kinds of parlor games we can play when we’re all drinking together? Making up new codes, deciphering old ones, etc. etc.