LAWRIE MERZ shared cataloguing responsibilities with me at Philadelphia Rare Books and Manuscripts from its founding until she left in 1988 to return to the more tranquil life of a librarian.
Her forte was MUSIC and she knew the field very well, so when she came to me in our first year of business with an auction catalogue from Christie’s South Kensington, wanting to bid on a few lots of music, Cynthia and I readily agreed that she should fax her bids.
In due course Christie’s notified us that we had successfully purchased The lot's description had been an example of that era's Christie’s SK cataloguing concision: It gave author, title, place, date, and condition statement for four books followed by the banal phrase, "and a quantity of others, similar." Our bid having been predicated on the four items specifically identified, we figured the "others, similar" would be "just a little gravy." It came as a bit of a  surprise! to receive a telephone call from our London shipper that went something like this:
"You mean, there are a lot of them?" "David, I mean there are a lot of them; enough to weigh at least a ton." I didn’t press and inquire if he meant a long or a short ton. I'd gotten the impression, finally. The "and a quantity of others" didn’t mean a "tea chest" worth.
 In preparation for the ship’s arrival I had contacted a customs broker and within two days of the ship’s docking, the broker had cleared our books and the trucking firm had them. The truck showed up here — totally unannounced.
. . . I had to lift them off, carry them over to the shop, up the steps, and into the building. Moving a ton of books in a half an hour was a bit of work. But I was a 30-something and not as smart as I am now (or even as smart as I was at the end of that 30 minutes).
 happy up until she felt the tug of academic librarianship to be irresistible.
 
The NEXT time a ton of books fell on
The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company Cynthy and I stood under the avalanche on purpose — with our eyes open. It happened this way. . . .  
George Allen, the owner of William H. Allen, Bookseller, in center city Philadelphia, called to say he had just returned from the home of the late Elizabeth Easby, the noted Mayanist and museum curator.  That's a book she wrote, at right, a good one. He told of how her heirs were anxious to clear the house that she and Dudley Easby, her equally scholarly husband, had lived in because it was to be sold almost immediately. Her library, their library, really, was out of scope for Allen’s, he said. Did we want to buy it?
 Somewhat disappointed, I knuckled down to looking at the books. And soon I was not unhappy! They were in every room on every floor, even in the basement.
We were presented with another purchase where the weight would be more than a ton — but this time we were to have a chance to say "no."
  At the time the firm consisted only of me, Cynthia, and a recent new hiree, JENNIFER WARD, our "do everything" assistant. Cynthy was skeptical because the cataloguing of the Easbys' assemblage would take several multi-person-full-time years!
  Convinced, though, that I could sell the library as a collection with no cataloguing I explained my scheme — and, though still skeptical, she acquiesced to the insanity of my plan. We spent two days packing up everything except six or seven boxes worth of stuff that was out of scope for us, as the bulk had been for Allen's, and we gave those books to a new bookseller who needed inventory. Especially inventory that was gratis.
 Since I don’t have a driver’s license (another story, to be told later, maybe), it was up to Cynthy to rent a large! truck and to navigate it through the narrow streets of center city Philadelphia to the house.
Sitting in the truck mulling this over, I remembered my earlier, "tail gate" lesson of how to sensibly move a ton of books from the curb into the shop. Hire someone else to do it. And as luck would have it, two young men who lived on the street were out playing at catching a football. I asked if they would like to earn five dollars apiece for unloading our truck (well, it WAS a while ago).
They readily agreed and in less than 15 minutes the van was empty, while the floor of "the middle" room of the first floor was covered with a layer of boxes three high.
One of the book luggers was full of questions. This was DEREK PLATTOWSKI. Cynthy gave him the basics of the business: Have customers, buy books, and sell books to customers. But he wanted more than the basics: Whose books had these been, what kinds of books were they, what were old
books actually worth? What was our oldest book, our most valuable book? Was selling books anything like trading in sports cards? Where were these books going to be going? It soon came out that Derek was sharp — and that if we wanted a part-time employee, he was available. How fortuitous! — for in order to sell the collection, I sure as heck could use a part-time helper! My "no cataloguing" plan to sell the books en bloc would need someone to photocopy all their title-pages . . . better that Derek do this than Cynthy, me, or Jennifer.
Then it developed that he had other talents, including the ability to WRAP
books that would, as an impressed customer later wrote, "withstand a nuclear
blast at ground zero."
Click his picture, to read an ODE written
on this subject.
 
We think all our "illustration" falls within fair use here. But — the Disney "cels" of course are Disney's, the Budget truck is Budget's, the "mumbly-peg boys" are from a book called Hometown U.S.A. (American Heritage Publishing Co., 1975), and the "Not Speaking" cartoon is from an old New Yorker.
On
to Other Adventures!
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"David, about that lot of books at Christie’s. Well I went there with my van, but you didn’t tell me that I should have taken the big lorry."
To which I replied, "I don’t understand. What do you mean?"
Cynthy and I called and spoke with the niece who was in charge of clearing the house and arranged to visit the next day to look things over.
The first things I saw that I wanted to buy were two "cels" from Fantasia that were signed by Walt Disney!
She did a phenomenal job, but by the time we had the truck loaded and the house empty, we were exhausted and angry at each other. 
Derek quickly became a full-time employee.
