Wednesday, Nov 04, 2026

My genesis as a bookseller was as a reader and lover of books and the printed word, rather than as a dedicated collector. My mother, Muriel, and I always acted on the understanding that we would not collect what we expected to sell to our customers—i.e. fine books. Despite many changes in our bookshop over the past sixty plus years, that premise has remained constant. I was, however, born with the true collector’s instincts and three non-conflicting areas sustained my acquisitiveness—bookmarkers, bookends and owls.

In our first years in business, the large private libraries we regularly purchased yielded many varieties of bookmarkers. Most were issued as a form of commemoration, greeting, advertising or propaganda, with categories ranging from Victorian era silk and craft ribbons, mottoes and calendars to book trade, insurance, performing arts and tourism. Everyday items are also used as bookmarkers, including tram, bus, airplane and theatre tickets, bobby pins, toothpicks, paper napkins, pressed flowers, and even the occasional gumleaf. Many bookmarkers are good companions to books—and infinitely preferable to turning down the corner of a page. However, those made of leather, metal, Sterling silver, ivory, wood, plastic, felt and other hard or thick materials, in addition to several in the list above, are actually damaging to the leaves of a book.

 

 

As is the way with most collectors, I believed my bookmark collection was not for sale. This idea changed in the late 1990s when an American colleague catalogued for sale as a single item a collection of more than 8,000 bookmarkers, amassed by a collector who died in 1998. I became concerned about what would happen to my similarly large collection in future years and, acting on this thought, I decided to purchase the American collection, combine it with mine, and offer the individual bookmarkers for sale as an ancillary collecting field.  

 

 

The task of identifying and dating some bookmarkers has been daunting, although made easier by the 1974 publication of Collecting Bookmarkers by A. W. Coysh and in 1981 The Bookmarkers of the Scottish Widows’ Fund by Abraham Jonker.

Jonker’s book, in particular, has helped me build an almost complete collection of the bookmarkers issued by the Scottish Widows’ Fund from around 1890 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and in particular the series of twelve bookmarkers illustrated by Walter Crane. Although many of these  Scottish War Widows’ Fund bookmarkers used to be relatively easy to collect, others were elusive. Building a complete collection is complicated by the many variants, being reissues detailing increased funds and bonuses. The time has now arrived for me to release this collection, comprising more than seventy examples of the five series that were issued, only lacking four from the First Issue and one each from the Second and Third Issues, although not all variants are included.

As a postscript, I assure all those who enjoy seeing the hundreds of owls presiding over our bookshop at 156 Collins Street, Melbourne—they are definitely not for sale!