He encourages visits by appointment and stresses that there is no obligation to purchase. The material is highly organized, divided by subject and category. His collections sit cheek and jowl among priced material but do not compete for the buyer's attention. They simply illustrate his skill and interest. Estimates of the volume of material range from 40,000 to 50,000 items including 6,000 books, 2,000 to 3,000 pamphlets, 5,000 pieces of ephemera, 2,000 maps, several thousand coins and more than 25,000 philatelic covers, mainly printed envelopes and letters from the 1840-1900 period. If you visit you'll be busy browsing. Only 4,000 items are online. You can spend a day here looking at reasonably priced material that no one ever sees.

The stock divides 75-25 between North America and Europe, is primarily non-fiction, virtually all of it antique, in the categories of travel, cartography, reference, history, and science.

Taken together, these three dealers suggest a world of collecting the internet only hints at. It turns out the net is robust but not remotely complete. Books are best represented. For maps, pamphlets, letters and ephemera the internet is still inadequate to the challenge. For these materials you need to travel. If you do, you will be rewarded.

Separately I have prepared a story about the two Boston book fairs. It appears elsewhere in this issue of AE Monthly under the title Affairs of the Heart.

Argosy Books
116 East 59th Street
New York, New York 10022
Hours: M-F 10-6:00, Sat 10-5:00
Telephone: 212 753-4455
Email: gallery@argosybooks.com
Website: www.argosybooks.com

J & J Hanrahans
Joyce & Jack Hanrahan
Wells, Maine
By Appointment
Telephone: 207 646-1811
Email: hanrahan@maine.rr.com

Eveleigh Books and Stamps
Leigh Stein
Dover, Massachuetts
By Appointment
Telephone: 508 785-0931
Email: estein300@aol.com