Two Generations in the Book Trade - Looking back with the dealer’s daughter
- by Susan Netzorg Halas
Three generations Netzorg and Halas, David & Jock, Pete, Rebecca, and Susan, circa 1980.
Part I – Eighty Years and Counting
On April 1, 2011, perhaps just as you are clicking on this file, I will celebrate my 32nd year as antiquarian dealer based on Maui. It was not my original goal to pursue this vocation, but I ended up doing what I knew best and following my parents into the trade.
My enterprise never reached the scale or stature of theirs. But looking back on their fifty years of running the Cellar Book Shop (ABAA) late of Detroit, Michigan together and my more than thirty years running Prints Pacific, Ltd. in Wailuku, Hawaii I find that some things haven’t changed at all, while other things have changed a great deal and the rate of change is accelerating all the time.
A lot of what I know I learned I learned from my parents.
Before there was Google there was my father Morton J. (Jock) Netzorg, the one-man-one-brain-all-purpose-reference-source. You want Expert – We got Expert.
Systems? Meet my mother Petra F. (Pete) Netzorg. At its height my parents’ shop had four workers but my mother ran it with the zeal and focus of a huge conglomerate. She was German, she had her standards. God help the slacker who didn’t perform exactly to her specs.
As for my brother David and I, born 1943 and 1946 respectively, we were along for the ride. The book business was not optional and we learned it literally from the bottom up.
They called it the Cellar because it started in the basement, but in later years it was on the second story over a Black beauty salon in a rapidly declining Detroit neighborhood. Most of her business was by phone and catalog or via ads and lists in the AB (Antiquarian Bookman) a weekly trade publication read with semi-religious fervor by booksellers. My mom's many and faithful clients started with her as lowly graduate students and ended as Professors Emeritus or Director of Library Services. She discouraged visitors, especially visitors without an appointment. She didn’t like “interruptions” which was what she considered most live arrivals to be.
Gros & Delettrez, June 12: LETTRE ENCYCLIQUE, manuscrit XIXe siècle
Gros & Delettrez, June 12: NOUVEAU TESTAMENT, Amsterdam 1668, reliure arménienne
Doyle The Collection of Mary Tyler Moore June 4, 2025
DOYLE: Peter Max, Portrait of Mary Tyler Moore (Versions 1,2, 5, 6), 2001. Estimate $10,000-15,000
DOYLE: The iconic screen-used wall-mounted "M" from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Estimate $5,000-8,000
DOYLE: The Mary Tyler Moore Show by Al Hirschfeld. Estimate $4,000-6,000
Doyle The Collection of Mary Tyler Moore June 4, 2025
DOYLE: Annie Leibovitz presents Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke for Vanity Fair. Estimate $4,000-6,000
DOYLE: Al Hirschfeld presents Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke in the CBS Wednesday Night Lineup. Estimate $4,000-6,000
DOYLE: Richard McKenzie, Portrait of Mary Tyler Moore. Estimate $1,000-2,000
Doyle The Collection of Mary Tyler Moore June 4, 2025
DOYLE: Three Original Bill Hargate Costume Designs for The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. Estimate $600-800
DOYLE: The famous Bonnie and Clyde "Wanted" broadside. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE: Ticket to the Final Episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show Estimate $400-600
Sotheby's Bibliothèque Jacques Dauchez - Autour de Dubuffet
5-19 June
Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Bissière, Roger. Cantique à notre frère soleil de saint François. 1954. 1,000 - 1,500 EUR
Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. La vie & l’œuvre de Philippe Ignace Semmelweis. 1924. Rare édition originale, avec envoi. Joint : La Quinine en thérapeutique, 1925. 4,000 - 6,000 EUR
Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Mort à crédit. 1936. Édition originale. Bel exemplaire sur Hollande. 2,500 - 3,500 EUR
Sotheby's Bibliothèque Jacques Dauchez - Autour de Dubuffet
5-19 June
Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Chillida, Eduardo ─ Emil Cioran. Face aux instants. 1985. Un des 100 exemplaires sur Arches. Eau-forte signée. 600 - 800 EUR
Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Dubuffet, Jean. Ler dla canpane. L’Art Brut, 1948. Édition originale. 3,000 - 5,000 EUR
Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Dubuffet, Jean. L'Herne Jean Dubuffet. 1973. Un des 100 exemplaires du tirage de luxe avec une sérigraphie originale en couleurs. 1,000 - 1,500 EUR
