December 2014
“Many people in the old books business are poets,” smiles Yves S., “or old guys.” And he is neither one nor the other. Aged 35, he is a down to earth collector who thoroughly studied this allegedly dying niche market, old books.
Old books suck! |
“Many people in the old books business are poets,” smiles Yves S., “or old guys.” And he is neither one nor the other. Aged 35, he is a down to earth collector who thoroughly studied this allegedly dying niche market, old books.
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YVES S.
A Reasonable Pessimist
Yves S. is a well-educated man who could
be described as a reasonable passionate: “Many
people in the old books business are poets,” he smiles, “or old guys.” And Yves S. is neither one
nor the other. Aged 35, he is a down to earth collector who always tries to buy
at the best price, spending hours behind his computer screen to spot the best
books worldwide. He even launched a website, and wrote a few studies over this allegedly
dying niche market, old books.
Books ain't cool, man
“When
you tell your friends you collect old books, they imagine a pile of moist and
dirty paper, eaten by rats in a dusty cellar. That’s how people see books in
France, like and old sour-tempered guys’ past-time; books aren’t glamour
anymore.” Yves S. is a lucid man who bought his first 18th
century book when he was still a teen-ager: “It was the abridged History of Henault,” he recalls, “a wonderful book that still features among
my all time favourites—I’ve read it six times.” Yves is fond of history
books—but not all history books. “I read all the books I buy, and I never keep
a boring reading, no matter how rare it is.” He also thinks highly of
Velly, Villaret & Garnier’s History of
France (1767-1786): “History books
that stick to facts are usually boring, and there are a lot of them—I love Garnier’s
book for the sociological discussions it contains.” When the author goes
straight to the point just like the Duke of Saint Simon—Lewis XIV was a man of mediocre intelligence, read the forewords of
his works—, it is even better. “I love
books that deal with the evolutions of society that led to the French
Revolution in 1789; also those that criticize the system from inside.”
Curiously, he doesn’t like Voltaire—whom he defines through a handful of plays nobody
reads anymore, and “a nice little novel”, Candid—,
or the Philosophes des Lumières, but he sure appreciates the bad faith of Bussy
Rabutin. “I guess he was an awful man...
But his writings are brilliant!” It is even more pleasant to find a work of
Necker bearing the arms of his worst enemy, the Comtesse de Provence; or Les Liaisons Dangereuses with those of
Marie-Antoinette (which lies on a shelf of the NLF). As you might have guessed,
Yves S. enjoys life’s ironies.
Family Reason
The history told in the books Yves S.
collects was never really his, or his family’s—indeed, he is from an ordinary
linage. Thus, he enjoys the ironic situation: “In those days, I couldn’t have
possessed a book with arms—I would have been sent to the gallows right away,”
he laughs. Books have always been present in Yves’ family, though. His father still
collects architecture books, for instance. And he does it his own way, trying
to replicate the famous Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection and its 160
must-have titles. “He’s got one hundred so far,” tenderly
smiles his son. Books seem to be a way to share some good time with his father,
as they discuss their next purchases together. And they always keep a cool
head. “I leave some 300 orders a year, to
buy 2 or 3 books,” confesses Yves. “I
always leave very low orders—and when I win, it’s always a good bargain. Money
is too hard to earn to be spent stupidly. And I watch auctions all over the world, especially in America where
there is less competition over French books.” But can a collector be wise;
or a passionate reasonable? Yves loves La Rochefoucauld’s maxims too much to
ignore that collecting old books, like everything else, is an egotistic past
time. “We buy books because they give a
good image of ourselves. In our distorted minds, the value of our books equals
our own value.” Thus, it would be vain to think one is able to keep his
passions under control; but hey still can be regulated.
Study Downfall
Yves works for an international company
and hardly understands how people behave in the book business. To him, most
booksellers are poets—and it sounds a
bit paternalistic in his mouth. They are not logical enough, so they usually
get nowhere fast. Yves is different, a logical man. As a matter of fact, he has
mathematically studied the old books market, made some prospects just like in
any ordinary business. He’s collected lists of clients from various
booksellers, got close to several auction houses like Sotheby’s or Christie’s, has
analysed their results, inquired about the biggest book sellers of Paris, and
eventually launched his own website that gives access to many book sellers catalogues
and to a calendar of upcoming auctions. And he made conclusions. “I’ve found out that there are between 2 and
4,000 people who buy old books in France. I even estimated the total value of
old books in France to 60 billions euros—most of it lying in the National
Library of France, of course.” All these calculations made a pessimistic
book lover out of him: “Book lovers, just
like booksellers, are isolated, and generally confined to their own fields of
interest. It is very hard to federate them. Furthermore, they are mostly old
people who will die soon. Nobody really cares about books. Our elites are
turned towards mathematics exclusively. I work with a lot of these guys—they
don’t know anything about history, not to mention literature—and they don’t
give a damn; they don’t even pretend. Nowadays, you don’t send a positive message
when you say you love books.” About the impressive—and apparently
successful—book fair of Le Grand Palais, set up every year by the SLAM, he says
that it costs a lot and that it only attracts old guys. “I think that within the next two generations, nobody will buy old books
anymore.” But reason isn’t always a guarantee of success—or the vector of
truth. And though busy and logically built, Yves’ website hasn’t kept all his
promises.
Booksellers
Times are hard, indeed. Not for old books only. And we all know that
culture suffers the most during crisis. Yves S. knows of a man who used to work
as an executive director and who left everything to become a bookseller. “He’s happy. He says he makes almost as much
money as he used to... But I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes when he retires.
I finance a bookseller myself; I pay for his investments. He makes no money at
all. I tell you, a lot of them are poets.” And there would be no future in
book business. “Well, my studies show
that books over 5,000 euros tend to get more and more expensive, while those
under 500 euros are losing value by the hour. The problem is that the latter
represent the vast majority of the market—they suffer from two factors. First, the
booksellers’ margins are too important. They need to make a 150% margin to
survive, because of taxes. But buyers don’t care, and buy from the same source:
auctions. Second, the Internet has unbalanced the supply and demand equilibrium,
and prices are going down. It is so easy to access books nowadays, that the
role of booksellers is more and more questioned.” There are still a lot of
booksellers around, no? “Yes, and they don’t live good”, underlines
Yves S. But fortunately, unlike reasonable men, poets don’t live from bread
alone... but also from the words proceeding from old books.
© Thibault Ehrengardt
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