Tips For Building A Bookplate Collection

I just  cold- called* a bookseller and explained my interest in bookplates

*Cold-Call

verb

1. make an unsolicited call on (someone), by telephone or in person, in an attempt to sell goods or services.

   
   
2. Then I followed up with this email.

Dear      ,
I am glad we had a chance to chat and I look forward to your response.
Bookplate collecting is my hobby and I am an active buyer.
It's hard to nail down what interests me but this may help.
In the best case scenario an accumulation of loose bookplates or bookplates on detached boards  are preferred.
For bookplates pasted in books here are some of my interests;
Any bookplates which you think are unique or attractive.

Leather bookplates
Angling bookplates
Bookplates used by notable people
Bookplates with Judaica themes

Finely engraved bookplates.
My preference is for books under $25.00 but for 18th century American bookplates  or bookplates used by famous people I am willing to pay
considerably more.
The ball is in your court..
Perhaps you can send scans or descriptions.

Cordially,

I'll keep you updated about the results but in general this approach is productive, sometimes years later.  As an afterthought , I will revise future emails to explain how to recognize universal bookplates and that they are of no interest to me.
Here is a bookplate I just purchased from a dealer who was contacted last week.

Thirty Five + Years of  Experience Condensed in One Article

For those of you who are new to bookplate collecting here is a link that
you will find helpful.

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/guest-column-bookplate-collecting-basics/

Mystery Bookplate

Does Anyone out there recognize this bookplate ?

Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com
This is the first response received 
It was sent by Mike.

http://www.mikeslibrary.com/

Wonderfully odd mystery bookplate

This = This

Buch = Book (German)

Tillhor = Belongs (Swedish)

a' = To (French)

Gurgen ? = Cyrillic

Xrinrints ? = western Armenian

Nothing further I can figure out at this time.  Linguist? Magic?

Clara Tice and President Calvin Coolidge

Grolier Club Bookplates, Past And Present
A bookplate exhibit  is now open at The Grolier Club located at  

 47 E 60th St, New York, NY 10022

It is in the second floor gallery

​ GALLERY HOURS: The exhibition is open to the public, free of charge, Monday-Saturday 10 am-5 pm through January 14, 2017. It will be closed Thursday and Friday, November 24-25, for the Thanksgiving Holiday, and December 24-31 for the Winter Holidays.

Update- Bookplates of Notable People For Possible Exchange

I have updated my exchange list.The bookplate of President Coolidge was just added .

http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/2016/09/bookplates-of-notable-people-for.html

President Coolidge was very interested in angling and included some fishing gear near the base of the tree on his bookplate .

President Coolidge

Clara Tice

This Biography was copied directly from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Tice

Clara Tice (22 May 1888 – 2 February 1973) was an American avant-garde illustrator and artist, who spent most of her life in New York City, United States. Because of her provocative art and public appearances, she was seen as representative of bohemian Greenwich Village and thus known as "The Queen of Greenwich Village."

Early life

According to herself and the New York Times, in 1908 Tice was the first woman in Greenwich Village to bob her hair.Around the same time, Tice was able to study under the famous artist and teacher Robert Henri. In 1910, Henri and some of his artist friends, organized the first exhibition of Independent Artist. This art show, which was with its jury-free and no-awards concept quite a revolution at that time and thus received enormous attention, was financially backed by Tice and featured her works.

Immersion in the arts

A few years later, namely in 1915, Tice's fame skyrocketed when Anthony Comstock, main founder of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, tried to confiscate Tice's art at the well-known bohemian restaurant Polly's. Thereafter images of Tice's artworks and photos of the artist were featured in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Rogue, The Blind Man, and Cartoons magazine. During that time she had several one-person exhibitions and also worked on numerous other projects, for example, she created posters for bohemian costume balls and played herself in the 1922 version of the Greenwich Village Follies.

During those years, Tice not only played an important part in Greenwich Village's colorful art scene, but also joined the Arensberg Circle in their uptown location. It was probably Marcel Duchamp who introduced Tice to Walter and Louise Arensberg and their salon. There she met Henri-Pierre Roché, with whom she spent several evenings. Tice also participated in two projects by the Arensberg Circle: first, two of her works were shown in the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists and second, one of her works was featured in the The Blind Man.^[

During the 1920s, she illustrated about a dozen books with her erotic images, these are nowadays expensive collector's items. In 1940, her own book called ABC Dogswas published. It is a children's book in which each letter of the alphabet is represented by a dog breed whose name starts with the same letter.^[8] This publication sparked renewed interest in Tice and her art. She also worked on her memoirs, which she never completed

Clara Tice Bookplates and Ephemera

Shown below are Clara Tice items from my  collection and the Tom Boss collection.

If you have items not shown please send a scan and your items will be added to this posting.

Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com

11/19/2016  These two were submitted by Nina Allen

They were commissioned by Jack Howard Andrews, who was a dog breeder from Connecticut. The second scan is a Christmas card.

The Quill

The Quill was started by Arthur H.Moss, a vagabond publisher.

"Arthur Harold Moss  was an American expatriate poet, and magazine editor.

In 1917, he returned to Greenwich Village, founding The Quill with partner Harold Hersey and was managing editor and wrote articles. It included artists Clara Tice, Wood Gaylor, Mark Toby and Alfred J Frueh .

He married Millia Davenport (1895–1992) and worked with her at The Quill. They co-authored, The Quill: For And By Greenwich Village, vol.4, no.8, 1919.

They separated shortly thereafter. She went on to design costumes.

In 1920, he hired his future wife Florence Gilliam to edit Quill. 

Here is a link to another website for further examples of art work by Clara Tice along with a bibliography.

www.claratice.com

Clara Tice, Nude Woman Feeding Horse, n.d.

Private Collection, Winthrop, Massachusetts.

Revisiting Old Friends-Part Two

Here are some more bookplates I unearthed while rearranging my collection in new albums.

The designs of these two plates appear to be by the same artist although one is signed by T.Craig and one is signed JDL. They were  mystery plates when I first wrote about them in 2011 and the mystery is still unsolved.

Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com

Note From Lew
While I think of it I am long overdue for my annual Ebay listing of 25 very special bookplates. Send me an email and I will notify you when my listings are up and running. If you are particularly interested in a certain artist or theme  advise me accordingly and I will try to include some items for you.

Was Arthur Frisbie an Egyptologist or a Dung Beetle enthusiast ?
The artist appears to be JFK or FJK. Your input would be appreciated.

At first glance you might wonder what's so special about this bookplate ?
It is the story behind private Trumbull that is of interest,  Here is some biographical information
about him from Time Magazine

So he was sentenced to 26 years of hard labor which was reduced to one year and later ran unsuccessfully for congress in 1940.
This sounds like  a John Grisham novel.

Here is one more mystery bookplate.

I'll see you again on Sunday by which time I may have recuperated from waking up in an alternative universe.

Revisiting Old Friends

I recently purchased five additional albums to make my bookplates more  easily accessible. In getting everything organized I discovered  bookplates I  had forgotten about and in some instances I didn't even know they were in my collection.
Here are some of the most interesting bookplates I found.

The bookplate for TNP was designed by L.S in 1913. The owner and the artist are unknown to me. Let's call this mystery plate #1.The brayer would indicate that the owner was involved in graphic arts. Does anyone out there recognize the plate ?
Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com

10/2/2016
Fellow Collector Richard Schimmelpfeng just srnt the following information:
 I found a reference in Gutenberg Museum Katalog, G41,749 for a monogram plate by Joakim Skovgaard (1856-1933), Denmark. for NPT 1913. Initials over a printer's ball, ie ink ball. Measures 58x50 mm. Found in either black and white, or colored.  Usually the monogram would have the main initial larger than others, so, I thnk this may match your plate, even though the LS doesn't. 

In three separate albums I found these bookplates by Francis Lee Jacques.

Here is some biographical information about the artist.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Francis Lee Jaques (1887-1969) was an American wildlife painter.

Francis Lee Jaques hunted and trapped with his father and connected with editors and writers from major hunting magazines. While still a teenager, Lee paid ten dollars to buy a taxidermy shop in Aitkin, Minnesota. He toughed out a few winters scarcely earning enough money to survive and bartering paintings to pay for services. He alternated railroad work in northern Minnesota and taxidermy in Aitkin to make ends meet.

In 1918 Jaques was drafted into the army. During his six-month stay in St. Emilione, France he recorded his surroundings in several small pencil drawings and watercolor paintings. He came home with a rank of Private First Class and returned to Duluth, Minnesota. There he met Clarence C. Rosenkranz, an artist of the impressionist style, who helped him mix color and express his feelings through art.

In 1924, Jaques sent some of his paintings to the American Museum of Natural Historyin New York City. His talent was recognized and he was invited to join the museum's team as a background painter. The team traveled around the world gathering exhibit specimens. Jaques recorded his experiences throughout.

Jaques was almost 40 years old when he met Florence Page, a friend of his landlord. She was a budding writer just out of a prestigious school in the East, but was originally from Decatur, Illinois. Jaques and Florence found common ground in nature and developed a friendship. They were married in 1927.

Francis and Florence Page Jaques spent time camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota. The time provided inspiration for their now-famous books, Snowshoe Country and Canoe Country. Sales from these two books helped fund the Jaques' involvement in the conservation project at Susie Island in Lake Superior. The conservation area was later named The Francis Lee Jaques Memorial Preserve in his honor.

The Jaques lived in New York City for over 25 years before returning to Minnesota to work at the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History on the University of Minnesota campus. Jaques worked designing and painting diorama backgrounds until his retirement.

The Jaques' final years were spent living in North Oaks, a few miles north of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Jaques painted daily and created a mountainous body of work. Upon his death Florence completed and arranged for publication of his biography, Francis Lee Jaques: Artist of the Wilderness World. She donated his remaining art works to the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis and to the Saint Louis County Historical Society, Duluth MN.

Frances Lee Jaques died July 24, 1969 at the age of 81. His wife, Florence Page Jaques, died January 1, 1972 at 82 years of age."

Note from Lew- If you have any bookplates in your collection designed

by Francis Lee Jacques  please send me a scan and your images will be 

added to this posting.

Ropes End sounds like the title of a mystery novel. I'm guessing Mr .Richardson was a reporter or a mystery writer. I came up with this information while searching Google.
 "The Los Angeles Examiner paper was from 1903 to 1962 when it then became the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. In the 1940s city editor James H. Richardson encouraged and promoted his reporters to bring to light the scandals and crime in Hollywood."
Let's call this mystery bookplate #2 until I verify with certainty who the owner was.
You input would be appreciated.

 This charming bookplate was used in the 1920s or 30s. at P.S. 46 in the Bronx.
 The  school is still open so I wrote to the principal to see if they have any records indicating who the artist CAB was.

This is a home made  bookplate made by Bros(?). and is high on my list of favorites.

Here is another home made bookplate

I'll be posting more of the  bookplates I unearthed  later in the week.

Two Bookplate Exhibits

Major bookplate exhibits are infrequent . Two exhibits in one month are unprecedented The first exhibit is at the Rosenbach Library here in Philadelphia.

The Art of Ownership

Bookplates and Book Collectors from 1480 to the Present

On Display: Wed, 09/21/2016 - Sun, 01/15/2017

Presenting beautiful and curious specimens from five centuries of book ownership, from a 15th-century coat of arms to engravings inspired by Romantic artists, The Art of Ownership delves into the stories of these bookplates.

https://www.rosenbach.org/learn/exhibitions

The second exhibit is in New York City at The Grolier Club

Thursday,
 November 17-Saturday, January 14

Second
 Floor Gallery Exhibition: "Grolier Club Bookplates Past & Present," curated by Mark Samuels Lasner and Alex Ames. 
http://www.grolierclub.org/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=268773&ssid=136866&vnf=1