It's always nice to find hand-coloured plates of course but sometimes, like in this 1806 "Botany" by James Smith, the lack of colour makes it easier to see how fine the engraving actually is.

New followers of late may not know that Sunday night is auction night. A wide selection of wonderful bits and pieces always on our ebay site (link from profile) nearly always ending about 7ish on a Sunday evening. Bargains to be had.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but some of my day was spent listing some antiquarian science, maths and liturgy on ebay... some out there will be excited by it, surely...

SOLD. Finally! This morning. After 13 years in the shop according to the database. It's been here almost as long as I have!

As if dating books wasn't often hard enough! My heart sinks whenever I see a book dated in the French Republican Calendar. Year III = 1794/5.

Sometimes I just get a chance to take a nice photo. Even in genteel decay books have something about them.

From 1865 this is a simple concept, a real photograph of a painting of a Shakespearean character facing an illuminated text from one of their speeches. All loose now. But what illumination, gilt and colour, it's like Blackpool! #BrokenBookOfTheDay

"The Outdoor World" from 1900 with the very Victorian subtitle 'A Young Collector's Guide', which tells you what you need to know about the mindset of even a naturalist in those times!

As I sit pricing secondhand books this morning I feel I would love to sit some well-known publisher's down and ask them to have a word with themselves about the quality of book production in the last 15-20 years.

I nearly used the phrase 'slightly posthumously' in a catalogue entry today! As well as being a horribly inelegant phrase, I realised in time that posthumous is an either/or situation!

I think I may start a "Broken but Beautiful" shelf for wee things like this. And clearly, it will be just above my head at the counter for the bantz.

Less than an hour to go, if you ARE excited by this stuff, now's the time to visit our ebay listings...

The second volume of autobiography by Doris Lessing, signed by her across the title page. Can't help thinking that collecting the signed books of Nobel Prize winners ought to be more of a thing than it is!