Indeed, the Very Rich Hours of Buying and Selling Books, and all the Frills of the Print Industry

Photo by Suzanne Currie

     It's true enough, and I wouldn't kid about such a thing, that I almost lost my noggin in a print shop once, if not for the last second warning by the foreman of the presses. I had apparently paid no respect to a clearly imprinted red line on the concrete floor in the print shop of the former Herald-Gazette, at their Dominion Street newspaper office, in Bracebridge. There was a bar that came whipping by my face at a fair clip, and I could feel the breeze it created. One of the printing crew might have had to clean up quite a mess if I hadn't got the message in that critical moment of machine operation. I was, you see, on a coffee break from my editorial responsibilities upstairs, that afternoon, and drifted back to the print shop where my mates would be working on some contract or other, such as the private printing of a local history which The Herald-Gazette Press was well known at the time. This was circa 1979-80 when I first became employed with Muskoka Publications and the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon.

     My good friend, Harry Ranger, a long established print technician, told me at that moment of physical salvation, that I must have "printer's ink" in my blood, to want to get that close to the pages going through the press. I suppose he thought I had known what I was doing, and was well aware of what the red line meant on the floor next to the massive unit in motion. What he meant of course, was what I had known as a junior writer and cub reporter at that point. Printer's ink is said to have an addictive quality to it, and once exposed for even a small amount of time, as an author for example, it's quite likely the exposure to the finer qualities of "ink" and what you can do with it on a clean sheet of paper, can captivate the creative spirit. No, it has nothing at all to do with liquid ink soaking through the pores of your skin, or having its vapors infiltrate your respiratory system like the stories told of coal miner's lung.

     I would come to take this reference seriously, because it did imprint on my soul, and it sucked me into a lifelong relationship, both as a still active writer, and as book dealer here in Gravenhurst. I had always been interested in books as a kid, but I had to haunt libraries to get access to them, because our pay cheque to pay cheque way of living for my parents, meant there wasn't much money left for what they saw as unnecessary purchases. I have never thought of books has being unnecessary in my life, but back in the mid 1960's to early 70's, my interests were capably handled by the Bracebridge Public Library and the high school but to a much lesser degree. The richly antiquated interior of the Bracebridge Library, and the large tables and comfortable wooden chairs were as inspirational as what I was reading at the time. I did like to sit in the open area of the oldest part of the Carnegie structure, and it was the one true source of inspiration when it came to considering taking up writing as a profession. Getting my first professional writing gig at The Herald-Gazette, was the influence that sort of put me over the top, as far as entering the cultured realm of the print industry in its wonderful entirety. The fact that I escaped having my crown ripped from my skull, living to tell the tale of my first act of survival in the print world, made it a storied beginning that is a rather critical part of this biography. I survived to write about a heart-rattling near miss, when I suppose it could be argued, if you have angel connections yourself, that my own Guardian Angel, who has done quadruple duty for this mortal, had higher orders to at least let Currie have another chance to advance a tad further in this writing thing before calling him upstairs. Thank you so much for this heavenly break.

     How did I get into the book buying and selling profession? Obviously a printer's ink thing again, right? Well, actually, it wasn't quite so poetic as the writing gig I haven't been able to separate from since the late 1970's. After I graduated university in Toronto, back in the spring of 1977, I conned my parents into backing me to open a small antique shop in the former home and medical office of Bracebridge Doctor, Peter McGibbon. It was a charming, well treed main street location opposite Memorial Park on Manitoba Street, and it should have been a winner right from the start if you believe in the saying "location, location, location." The problem that surfaced early on, is that my parents weren't at all interested in antiques, but rather, decided that instead of investing in antiques, and sending me on buy jags with ample money to attend auctions, for example, they did their own thing by buying giftware. It left me with a depleted purchasing fund, and forced me to find any way possible to buy more with less money. It was by this unfortunate happenstance that I turned onto old books as a sort of cheapskate substitute for spending a wad of cash on heritage pine, old glass, collectable china, and bric-a-brac to fill the three rooms of our main floor shop. Gosh, was I in a pickle. The shop never really worked although I did sell off all the antiques I had begun with, and yes, a goodly supply of old books I had been able to acquire, and by mutual agreement, we closed the business. I was unhappy, of course, but I had already taken a big step in writing, and had a good paying gig with Muskoka Publications, only two blocks from where I was still living at the McGibbon House.

     When Suzanne and I opened Birch Hollow Antiques in the winter of 1986, at our modest turn of the century home on Ontario Street, in Bracebridge, our intention was to make it our retirement venture, launched well ahead of when we were going to need it; Suzanne was in the early years of her teaching career with the Muskoka Board of Education, and I had become a full fledged editor with the community press. I was a stringer for CHAY FM in Barrie, in feature news, and a director of Woodchester Villa and Museum on behalf of the Bracebridge Historical Society of which I had been a founding member. But we thought that if we rooted the antique business early on, in our careers, by time we hit retirement age, well, we would have a business that would keep us financially secure, and culturally entertained. But we still didn't have a lot of money to spend on our business, and we had at the same time begun our family with son Andrew and son after, Robert, both with connections to that first in-home shop on Ontario Street just below the Bracebridge High School. The only good thing was that I didn't have a lot of room to fill, so I could stick to a rather tight budget.

     The problem for antique dealers generally, is the perpetual wrestling match with those who have more money to spend than us, at auction sale specifically. Where, at the time, we purchased large quantities of inventory items to keep the shelves full of all sorts of bits and bobs. What I was running into constantly, were those collectors and related hobby sale goers, who had the kind of deep pockets, that kept me out of the running for the best pieces of the sale. Which of course were the vintage furnishings such as hoosier cupboards and flat-to-the-walls; roll top desks, armoires, buffets, sideboards, dry sinks and pie safes. I could buy occasional oil lamps but not the best ones, in cranberry and blue glass, which went to collectors. I was happy with the old and still functioning farm lamps, as I called them, and whatever else the collectors and more astute dealers at the sales didn't find exciting enough. It got to the point that I was coming home from sales with a couple of boxes of items, after spending five our six hours in the hot sun trying to sneak in a few winning bids. It was discouraging of course, but it led to some alternatives as far as what we could do as a specialty few others attending the sales were interested in pursuing. Our relationship with good old books and the print industry, part two, got a huge push in the right direction, when we both found out, quite by experimentation, that our size business was perfect for representing old and antiquarian books. Quite by accident found that I was able to blow competing book buyers out of the bidding for one simple reason. I had been researching old books for some period of time, and I knew what kind of print materials from a bygone era, would be popular offerings in such a rustic little quarters, as the former parlor in our tiny Ontario Street house. I didn't consider myself a bibliophile at that point, because I was much more interested in writing books, than selling them as a profession. The two would eventually merge together, and I would write copious feature columns in the local press about, you guessed it......what it was like buying and selling thousands of old books each year for our growing antique shop. We never actually called it a book shop, even today, because it is but one part of a much larger antique enterprise; but none the less, we are still making this print commitment work, and to a surprising degree of success as a retirement business with a lot of perks for someone with printer's ink in the blood.

     Although we don't attend auctions any more, because we simply don't have the time to invest, as the shop is open six days a week here in Gravenhurst, we still acquire many hundreds of books each year through a variety of sources, and over the counter acquisitions. I am delighted to admit after all these years, that I have very much benefitted from the printer's ink I ingested so many years ago, and I wouldn't change a thing even if I had the opportunity for a do-over. I may not have written many books, but I probably wrote a million column inches or more, of newspaper and magazine copy in that lifetime of print association. I'm still doing this but not with actual print you can smudge with your fingers or sense by smell on a still wet printed page. I am staring at a computer screen at this point, but you know, I can still recall that wonderfully historic ink pressed down hard on a clean white page, and feel the liberation of creative enterprise. Selling old books? It's still a rush as well. Today at our shop we sold quite a few old books, and that makes an old bookseller feel pretty good about the many years spent in close harmony with that blessed ink of cultural legacy.

     I will have more stories about old books coming up this week on this site. Please join me for more on the joys and enrichment that comes from the association with printer's ink.