Diversifying

When you begin a rare book business (and you're self-funding), you start small. You figure out a niche you know and begin to collect from there. The exciting part--at least to me--is when you can begin expanding. You get to know your clients and what they like. You get to know yourself and what you like.

I, for instance, realized that I have a really strong area of interest--about 1900 to 1950. So, from now on, you can probably expect Opal to carry mainly books from that era. If you've been paying attention, you'll see that we've already expanded into travel a bit, as well as slightly earlier children's books. These are great areas that let us fulfill our mission of selling beautiful, often illustrated, better-than-collectible condition books. We care that every book we sell is nice to look at and offers something interesting for the reader. If it's valuable and dull, someone else can sell it! We're about the books that make you think, that feel like an experience to own.

The next area we're moving into is Life During World Wars I and II. Not the battles, necessarily, but more daily life for civilians and soldiers. That's something that deeply interests me--and I hope it's the same for you.