Report: “Retail Might Be Struggling, But the Rich are Buying Rare Books”

From Bloomberg:

Even as independent bookstores struggle to survive, rare books and manuscripts have proven a rare bright spot in the industry. It’s almost like two businesses,” says Kenneth Gloss, the owner of Brattle Book Shop in Boston. “As far as the general used-book business, it’s been off.”

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The resilience of the top of the rare book market is particularly notable, given the 20-year-long erosion of the rest of the market. “There’s less collectors and there’s less participation in terms of people coming to book fairs,” says [James] Gannon [director of rare books at Heritage Auctions]. “Many [rare] bookstores have closed up and gone to online-only business, and the reason is that people come into the shops, then go online and search for an item and find it cheaper.”

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