Tuesday, Jun 30, 2026

One of the bonuses of being a generalist bookseller is the anticipation of the next purchase—as we deal in secondhand items, we cannot order our stock from a publisher’s list or wholesale outlet. Although the next offering has not always been exciting, many have. For example, we are currently cataloguing a small but rich library of eighteenth and nineteenth century books, most in fine leather bindings. By contrast, I can recall some more unusual offerings.

During our early days in Essendon, my mother and I were invited to look at libraries in private homes of several locals, ranging from a beautiful home in Park Street where the walls were hung with Persian carpets, to the decaying mansion, “Sunnylands”, home of Mrs Shaw Logan, widow of stock and station agent, T. Shaw Logan. We bought some lovely books during our first visit, and experienced the full force of her chutzpah during a second visit. This time she ‘insisted’ that I buy a stylish 1920s black crepe gown that was beaded all over in silver and black. The beading was worn from the belly where she had danced closely with her male partners. I had the beading restored and wore the dress to dinners, parties and, as a twenties flapper, to a fancy dress gala on a cruise ship.

Mrs Shaw Logan also showed us a toy that she thought we could sell in our shop, along with the contents of a large canvas bag:

A small toy – a black wooden rickshaw . . . A chinaman’s head popped up when the rickshaw was pulled along. Mrs Shaw Logan asked if the Craddocks would buy the toy. Kay pointed out that one of the rickshaw poles was missing. The reply came, ‘But it still works, dear – surely it is worth sixpence’. Kay and Muriel were so shocked that the local millionairess – as they thought of her – would try to extract a last sixpence from two poor shopkeepers – as they thought of themselves – that they paid her the money. The toy was unsaleable but they kept it as a memento of how the wealthy remain so.

If Kay was mesmerised by the dowager’s chutzpah, the spell was not strong enough to transform her into a dealer in human prostheses. When Mrs Shaw Logan asked the ladies if they dealt in false teeth because, she said, producing a large bag, she had kept every set of her late husband’s, the Craddocks declined the offer. [Extract from Rare. A life among antiquarian books by Stuart Kells. Folio, Sydney, 2011]

Muriel Craddock, was an astute and adventurous buyer of stock. An example of the latter quality was the purchase of a large number of books on conchology, along with a collection of actual sea shells, during a visit to Adelaide.

For over 70 years, including 25 in the lighthouse service, George Pattison collected and studied shells. He found a Chiton new to science that was consequently named Choriplax pattisoni. Pattison’s library of conchology books and pamphlets was sold in Adelaide in 1972 along with his huge collection of shells . . . Muriel attended the sale and bought the great majority of the books and pamphlets. She resisted the temptation, which was formidable, to buy many of the shells, though she did buy silver-mounted shells purported to be from the Duchess of Portland’s enormous collection . . .

Catalogue 27 listed 253 items on conchology from Pattison’s collection. Among them were several highly important eighteenth-century European . . . The catalogue included the silver-mounted shells. Because of some doubt about the age and provenance of the shells and their mounts, Kay and Muriel added a note expressing these doubts and emphasising that the mounted shells ‘can only be offered as “works of art” which may have come from the Portland collection.’ [Extract from Rare . . . ]

Another notable purchase was the Uren-Hawke Upfield collection. This was not our first purchase of books by and about Arthur Upfield, the British born Australian author of crime novels featuring his part-Aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte (‘Bony’) but it was particularly important, having originally belonged to Upfield and Jessica Hawke. It contained not only books but also original manuscripts, correspondence, artwork, photographs and press clippings—and Upfield’s original Model T. Imperial typewriter, with travelling case, used to write his novels (now in the Baillieu Library at The University of Melbourne).

Other items that have added frisson to our purchases include bookends, mystery book boxes, Alice in Wonderland collectibles—and Mary Grant Bruce memorabilia, including her wooden trunk.