Books, Books & More Books!

It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm Deli Leazy, Boston's new radio.

We always on Friday night is week ease you at the weekend. We have two hours left and we're going to be talking with Ken Gloss in just a moment, but I'll remind you that we will do our last final Friday of the year before the November election. The November election is on November fifth, So as I think all of you know for the last now seven months and soon this would be the eighth month since last March.

I'm fine, and it's a lot of fun to be back and talk with you, and looking forward to these books events, which of course I'm very involved with. But it's just really good talking with you. It always is, well, Ken.

I think if I could call anyone a bibliophile, it would be you. You love books. You've spent your entire life surrounded by books, and basically you have made a life associated with books. And what a wonderful life you have you have had and that you continue to have followed in your dad's footsteps the Brattle Bookshop, and many people used to get confused you're on West Street, You're not on Brattle Street. But I know there was a point in time. What is the derivation of the Brattle Bookshop?

Well, what happened was in nineteen forty nine my parents were getting married. The Brattle Bookshop, which actually you can trace back to the eighteen twenties, was literally going back out of business, and my mother had five hundred dollars and with that they bought half interest. Now, the thing about Brattle Street, which was where the bookstore was, there was a small street in what was Scarley Square of Boston called Brattle Street. And to make it even more confusing,

And all the entertainment that ensued there.

All the entertainment then, very interesting entertainment. I have to admit I was way too young to take part. I just heard about it all.

Yes, me too, But no street, the more famous Brattle Street in Cambridge.

Well, what I had to do was in the early seventeen hundreds in Boston, We'll go back a few years to get the story. There was a very very rich merchant named Thomas Braddell. He had some land in Boston, and he owned an awful lot of land in Cambridge. Thus Brattle Street in Cambridge, and that's where the name comes from, a very rich Bostonian in the early seventeen hundreds.

Wow, that gets us back aways. So for people who don't understand that, oftentimes you find your inventory. If you want to go find a New York Times current bestseller, you probably go to Amazon. You probably go to if there are any Barnes and Nobles left bookstores. So that's not what you deal in. You deal in books that you have bought from families or from estate sales, and people go and browse your bookstore like crazy. You're on West Street in Boston.

Yeah. Well, it's actually very interesting. One of the things that people don't realize about the business. So and they picture someone in the book business sitting behind talking with people about books, but they don't think of is we just moved twenty thousand books out of someone's house in one of the Boston suburbs. I was in Connecticut two days ago moving about two thousand books. In Maine yesterday moving a thousand or more. And it's really a physical

So give us the name, and we're going to obviously talk about these book fairs that are coming up, the one this weekend and the one next weekend. And I also do want to encourage people if they'd like to call in and inquire if they have some manuscript or book and that of years past, and they would love you to venture an estimatest of with the value of that.

And you never know, you never know what's been sitting around. Because just recently a colleague of mine, I do the Antiques bro Show, I've done that for over twenty years, but a colleague in North Carolina was at an estate. Really nice to say to North Carolina. They were looking through furniture that was over two hundred years old. They opened up one of the draws. There was a piece of paper in the draw. That piece of paper was an early, very early printing of the Constitution. It went

Let me ask you. You said, you, colleague, that was he in the in the process of buying the furniture, or was he at the estate sale and going through the home and figuring out what he wanted to purchase.

No, he wasn't. He was in there as an appraiser. Now there was the estate and the lawyers had called him in to look through the furniture, look through all the objects. He wasn't an expert in books and manuscripts, but he was very knowledgeable. So when he spotted it, he knew, wait a minute, this is something we've got to get people in and really look at. And obviously everybody was sort of taken aback and surprised. And you know, it still happens.

I mean, if I'm not mistaken, the number of original declarations of independence and constitutions. They pretty much of you know, the original documents. They have some I think estimate as to how many of those remain in existence. And it's it's it's not a big figure in either within either group.

Correct, it's in the twenties and thirties. The Constitution is even rarer. I mean, it's a piece of paper, you know, and it's a piece of paper, and it's well over two hundred something years old. And the other thing about them is a lot of the copies that you hear about or can see or view are in institutional library state underglass, not only under glass, but you know they're never going to come up for sale or be available

Unbelievable. My guest is Ken Gloss, you'd like to join the conversation. We're going to talk about a couple of events coming up which are open to the public. Uh. And if you are a bibliophile or someone of that interest, you you're going to be and you're going to enjoy

Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World Nights six studios on WBZ News Radio.

My guest is Ken Gloss to the Bradle Bookshop. So Ken, let's talk the event this weekend and the event next weekend. Let's start with this weekend. I assume both of these are open to the public. There may be an admission charge, but let's talk about this weekend first.

Well, well, first of all, they're both definitely open to the public. Matter of fact, we love the public to come because those are the people that we've won an interest in get reading and collecting and so on. So the one this week weekend is called the Boston Book Festival. It's mostly new books and a lot of authors centralized write in Copley Square. It's free, there's no charge at all. We have a booth right in front of the Boston

On in the area.

Right, I mean, if you're going to be in the Boston area, definitely get by Copley Square tomorrow and I'll tell you that this fare it's been going for I'm not sure fifteen twenty years now, and they've had good weather almost every single year. So that's the Heavens is saying it's something to go and see, and we will be representative there and we're bringing in this fair. We don't bring our rare items. We bring general books, some history,

So the event tomorrow, it sounds to me like it's set up in that park that is really Copley Square, but you're not on the on the steps of the Public Library, and you're not at the front of the complete Plaza hotel. You're in that that public space.

Correct, well, the public space is being redone right now, that big park. So literally we're on the sidewalk in front of the Boston Public Library. The old yeah, right right on there is where it is it used to be in that park, but the park's being renovated.

And then a lot of the oftentimes Dartmouth Street is closed to traffic. It is so is it closed to traffic, it will be closed.

It will be closed to traffic tomorrow. They have I think a few food trucks, but then they have a lot of lectures that again you can go into the churches in the area. And it's just a really fun, light, easy event where people are just trying to promote literacy, reading and uh and how could we not be at some thing that's that's showing books And we've done it since it first started and it's a fabulous event.

So okay, so let's talk about the big event, which is the following weekend, Friday, the eight of November through Sunday the tenth. That's at the Heinz Convention Center in downtown Boston right by they share the Sheridan Boston Hotel.

Yeah, and that's and that's an event that I think it's in the forty seventh or eighth year in Boston. The organization is seventy five years old, but it's it's about one hundred one hundred plus dealers from all over the world, from Europe, some from the Eastern Europe, Great Britain, tell then all over the United States. Dealers come and they have basically old or rare but almost any area of subject that you can think of.

Uh.

Friday, it's I think from four to eight and there is a twenty five dollars admission charge. But I'll tell you a secret. If any of you people listening now want to go to the Friday night opening, I'll bet you if they got in touch with me, I could come up with comp tickets for them. I made sure to have a bunch.

Okay, But then you may stop by.

Or call or email or something, and we'll make sure they get them.

And we'll give that information at the end of the hour, so that people have a chance to get a piece of paper, a pencil, and we'll give them your email or a phone number where they could reach out to the bookshop.

Absolutely, and then Saturday and Sunday it's free. There's no admission charge because we don't want to discourage people from coming in and looking. And a lot of people they go to a show like or they hear about it and they think it's very erudite and they think that, you know how I would we be interested. But it covers almost every subject that you can think of, and

But you know I did not play on that team. I want you to know that that was before my time.

Well, I was more likely to root for the team when you were there than I was at this one.

You know.

But it's things come in like that.

Now.

There will be letters of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, There'll be cookbooks signed by Julia Child. One of the things I know that I'm bringing is a program from the from the nineteen twelve World Series first year at Gunway Park, Red Sox win the World Series. Se Yeah, and a program from it. Also, I have a promotional brochure for Titanic if you want to go on a cruise, I don't recommend it, but I have the brochure for it.

Ask you that there's a question, ken that I have, and that is the how tight is the security at this It is the forty sixth Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, and again November eighth to the tenth at the Hinz Convention Center, you know, very you know, conveniently located on Boylston Street, right, you know, sort of the back of the Sheridan Boston Hotel lost the Sheridan Hotel whatever they

There worth thousands of dollars and tens of thousands. Well, first of all, there is a co check. You can't bring bags in. There are security guards checking when you leave the you know that you have receipts and so on. But each deal has a booth and you have your people in the booth.

You got to you gotta be Obviously, none of my audience is going to go there and try to do anything illegal. Ken, I'm going to take a very quick got to take you a very quick break here because because of all of the the activity tonight in the Middle East, we're expecting a CBS special news report. My guest is Ken Gloss or the Brattle Bookshop. If you want to join the conversation, you have the numbers. But before we get back to Ken, this is a special news report from CBS on the Middle East.

You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.

My guest is Ken Glass, Ken Gloss of the Brattle Bookshop, and we are talking about a couple of events coming up tomorrow and next weekend. The event tomorrow is in Copley Square in Boston, uh in front of the Boston Public Library that Ken talked about it. And then the book fair the forty six is an international into Boston International Interquarian Book Fair from November eighth to the tenth.

They can probably range anywhere from four or five hundred to maybe one thousand and fifteen hundred, depends on what the book is, how it signed. Also would depend what it signed when they were president, which collectors prefer as opposed to before or after. So you know, you can get all sorts of variations on that, but no, they're out there. Actually, a really interesting one that sells for maybe around fifteen one hundred of dollars is a Life

And so the the books are about Pierce, written by Hawthorne, signed by Peers.

Yeah, fifteen twenty five hundred. Now the other thing that you've.

Had, of course, is in New England from New Hampshire.

Is New Hampshire, so that would be an interesting but yeah, the lesser known presidents there's less demand. And yeah, you could in the mid hundreds to mid thousands you could get most everything. And if you're looking to collect modern presidents, I mean Jimmy Potter wrote a lot of books and signed them, Gerald Ford Bush, you know a lot of those you can get in a few hundreds of dollars.

That and how do you reach how if you if you're someone who's a novice and is starting off and saying, look, I want to have a book or two in my library that actually signed by a former president. Are they websites or would they go through someone like you and say, hey, can you direct me, you tell me, tell me what would be how would someone proceed?

Well? What I yes, they can always get in touch with me, and I can always point them in the right direction or have things. It's one of the things is they could go to the book fair on through A through the tenth, and I guarantee you there will be dealers there with a fair number of signed presidential books, not only the Washington's and the Lincoln's, which there are signed books, but the more modern presidents and those dealers a lot of them will bring some of their better

They cherish. What type of a book would have Washington affixed his signature to.

Well, he actually signed most of the books that he had in his library at Mount Vernon and those so it's not just books that he wrote or had, it just books that he that belonged to him. Jeff Yah, Yeah, the Jefferson, the same thing. Lincoln. One of the ones that you can that as high up there is the Lincoln Douglas Debates, which was some of the most famous debates in presidential history. Now those runs into the tens of thousands of dollars or more, but they're out there.

Uh, how do you know that you're getting a book that was actually signed? Uh you know, you you have no way of knowing that. You know, with a lot of uh, you know, baseball signatures there there there's letters of authenticity that come with a ball signed by Nicky Nantel and they have people who know the signature. Is that the same procedure with books?

Percential it's you don't get the letters of authenticity as much. It's not as general as the sports. But there are people who this is their specialty. They've been doing this for years and years, very very good reputations. And if someone came to me asked, I could point them in the right direction. And also, uh, this organization that puts this on the interquarm booksellers, it's a vetted organization. It

All right, Let's get to a couple of phone calls here. If you have an item you'd like to discuss with Ken Gloss of any written material, whether it's a book, a letter, or a manuscript of some sort. Let me go first off to Sandra in Carver. Sandra, you are next on night Side with Ken Gloss.

Go ahead, Sandra, Okay, thank you for taking my call. And I just have a couple of questions. I do have a book here. I believe I talked to Brattle Street book Shop several years ago about this book.

No Street, it's just brattle Bookshop book right, I bike rode down Bridle Street and it went a few years back.

But anyways, in one of the little pages here it says, presented to blank it's No Name by the Church of the Incarnation, New York, Christmas eighteen eighty two.

And what's the title of the book.

It's Tennyson's first edition all his works.

And where where was it printed? Do you have it in front of you? What's the I have the book right here.

Let me just look New York Richard Worthington, seven to seven Old Broadway.

Okay, well, see that's one of the reasons I asked that is Tennyson was the poet Laureate of England. His first editions were done in England, they weren't New York. So what you have there is probably a very nice old edition, but not the first or rare. You know, probably something that's in the ten to twenty five dollar range, and a lot of times when it says presented to it might have been something that was sold by the

The person who gave me this book, that's what they told me. And I do have another little book if the World Atlas dated nineteen eighteen, pretty good condition.

World Atlases nineteen eighteen is during the war, and so people tend to look more at atlases during the war. They like them better. You also tend to see, especially when you get to Europe in that area, how borderlines are changing from time to time. The politics change, the war changes things. But nineteen eighteen, though it's over one hundred years old for Atlas, isn't that rare? So you're

Ra hope that hope that helps.

Yeah, I was just curious. I have a couple of other books, but I couldn't dig them out.

But not a problem. We'll have Ken Gloss on again. Thank you, Sandra, I gotta check the break here, Okay, thank you.

Mich Thank you, bye bye.

We'll try to get a couple more calls in if you stick with us. It is now six one, seven, two, five four ten thirty six month seven nine three one ten thirty. What happens Ken in these situations If people start to call, then the phone's light up and we'll be here all night. But we're gonna keep cam with us until eleven o'clock. We'll try to get everyone in. We'll be back on night's side with some more with Ken Gloss right after a couple of messages.

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

All right, let me get to back to the call. As my guest is Ken Gloss. Let me go to Florence and Groveland, Florence. You are on with Ken Gloss. Go right ahead, Florence. What's your question? What item would you like Ken to evaluate for you? Go ahead?

Yeah, I've got an item, Ken, And I just wanted to mention before I mentioned my item, Ken, I am related to Franklin Pius on my dad's.

Okay books, Florence, go.

Ahead, He didn't, but I'm an aviderator. Ken. My book I have my mother gave me a while back. It's the a copy I guess of the Scarlet Letter. It made it copyright nineteen twenty nine, and I was just wondering about it. The book is is old but very legible, and it has those very fine silky pages, isn't it?

Yeah?

Paper, Okay, tent tent.

Keen is going to be able to give you. My guess is that the Scarlett Letter was around well before that. And oh yeah, I might be disappointed with what Ken has to say.

Go ahead, Ken, Well you be rich to know.

Hold on, Hold on Fla, just hold on, let's give let's give kenn a shot here and then.

You can still doing. The Scarlet Letter was done in the eighteen fifties, so if you had nineteen twenties, that's a good seventy years after. So it's old for years. But for Scarlet Letter, not that old. But the Scarlet Letter is a classic. It was done in hundreds of different edition and some of the ones were made as sort of gifts with very nice pages and so on. But they're not terribly valuable. Probably again in the ten twenty five dollar range. You just have to get one another seventy years.

Older, okay, all right, it's not as though you could purchase one now, you know, the nineteen twenty nine days.

Yeah, they're probably.

Yeah, you definitely could find them and uh and you can find the others too. But it's it's interesting, it's fun, but not not terribly valuable.

All right, Thanks very much, Florence, and thanks for the comments about Franklin Pierce.

Yank you, thank you.

Let me go next to Matt mad you're on with ken Glass so the Bridle Bookshop. Go ahead, Matt, all.

Right, real quick.

So I appreciate the time I actually authenticate for JSA, James Spence for sports. Now I have an item from Edgar Allen Poe that's a cut, a cut signature that has passed JSA and also Beckett Pending as real. What value is that? Looking at roughly, if it's just a.

Cut signature without anything beyond that, you're probably talking in the five to five hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on how doc, how bold you know, if there's any fading or some one in that range. Poll letters can go for thousands and thousands of dollars. But what really determines the value is the content of the letter, and that's what the collectors who are really looking for it looking for or assigned a book the cut signature.

That's cool, all.

Right, So you know, congratulations on that. That's yeah, No, I mean it's it's it's a great I would say, probably hold on to it for now. If you with if you had a letter with which was a legitimate Edgar Allen Pole letter, Uh, talking about Lamar Jackson. That would be worth a hell of a lotta time the current quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, who obviously are named after the poem, The Ravens. Thank you, Thank you, my friend. Okay, you know, go ahead.

I was gonna say one of the things that when you're authenticating and looking letters, especially when it's a letter, is beyond even the signature you look historically, does it make sense? Was the person alive when this was written?

Was? You know?

Can it make sense? And that's part of the authentication process too.

Yeah, he would not have ever written a letter about Lamar Jackson or for that matter, the Baltimore Ravens.

Anyway, very much.

That's easy, Yeah, yeah, I just had to have some fun with it, that's all. So, how can folks get in touch with you? Particularly? You were very gracious to offer the possibility of getting people tickets to the to the Friday night of the forty six lost at International Antiquarium, which is a twenty five dollars ticket. What's the best way they can read you this week?

Well, you can always go to our website Bradlebookshop dot com, and it's all of the contact information is there. I mean, I would love it if you could come into the store and we could show you around, if you said you heard me on night side, if I'm there, I'll give you a tour and explain things. But and if you called the store, we you know, and I knew you were coming an email. I could just put some

Yeah, it's the real It is the real deal. Ken Gloss is always your one of my my most fascinating guests. Your your depth and breadth of knowledge about politics, literature, sports is unbelievable. Thank you, my friend. We will talk soon, okay.

And thank you, and I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Dan Ken Gloss of Brattle Bookshop on West Street in Boston, not to be confused with Brattle Street anywhere else. Thanks Ken. We'll talk soon when we come back. Our final twenty twenty presidential poll. I want to know if the election were held today and it's only a couple of week and a half away or so, now, who would be your candidate. We've done this. This will be our eighth month. We do the twentieth hour the last Friday of the month. It happens to be the