TALK GIVEN TO THE ABA AT STRATFORD IN 1989

I gave the following address to the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association in 1989 at Stratford-on-Avon, while I was head of the Book and Manuscript Department at Sotheby's, five years before I left Sotheby's. It ties in with the article I wrote for ABPC in 1994 and the talk I gave to ILAB in 2000

'I place a considerable premium on having the opportunity of being with you today. It is always good to be among colleagues who are commanded by the same ruling passions. I believe that there should be more not less dialogue between dealers and auctioneers.

If you have come expecting to hear that auction houses are here to stay and that, while they have their differences with the trade, there is a great deal of common ground between them - if you think you are going to hear that, then you are not going to be disappointed.

There have been many changes in the world of books and manuscripts that we all inhabit since I was in the trade working for Hofmann and Freeman between 1968 and 1970. There have been considerable shifts in functions and changes in demand and supply and in clientele. But, in my view, none of these changes has in any way diminished the importance of the book dealer in ensuring the health of our market. Indeed, there are ways in which your role is perhaps a more important one than was previously the case.

In a number of respects I have an easier job than you and I have considerable respect for you and your contribution. I am in a business where, relatively, the risks are less in comparison with yours. You live and die by your decisions and purchases. I can generally live longer with my decisions and can perhaps feel any wound less keenly. If you make a bad buy you have to swallow it - I can (as it were) carry on chewing the cud.

I chose to stay in the auction business initially because I wanted to work with more and better material than I thought I would have been able to obtain as a dealer. Subsequently, I have found that I could have a greater impact in our world from the rostrum than I could in the 'bourse'. Perhaps also I lack your particular sort of stomach. But I am very aware that where you go in up to the waist; I fish from the shore. 'Gamblers you'; 'croupiers us'.

However, my more than sneaking admiration for your willingness to live on the cliff edge is not the only reason for my recognition of the importance of you as dealers. It seems clear to me that dealers have vital functions to perform in the market place.

Like us, you can create new areas of collecting and create new collectors for the market place in general. You also have a vital role in fostering, educating and supplying goods to collectors in a much more continuous and intimate way than the auctioneer. This is still true, however much the auctioneers may have come to realise that they have to take a greater interest in these things than they used to. In fact, your role has increased, I think, as auctioneers are forced to come to the market place less frequently and in much more specialised ways. Our sales are fewer in number (some 25 now not the 65 in 1981, though the number of lots has largely remained steady). The more important sales are more highly specialised (before 1982 almost all employees in the book department at Sotheby's were generalists).

The auctioneers can and do create new clients and we do a great deal to bring our auctions to their attention. You, however, can keep their interest alive. I do believe that most of the collectors who come first through our portals are not long in crossing your thresholds - and vice versa. Auctioneers are here to stay but you can be real beneficiaries of some aspects of our presence in the market. I am not pretending that our interests are always the same, but I am saying that we have here an interest in common. Good prices are good for all of us - good for profits; good for drawing new material onto the market and good (in our different ways) for creating and keeping new clients.

In developing the most important new market in the book business - Japan - some book dealers have been positively buccaneering. And, given the Japanese temperament, booksellers have had considerable advantages there over auctioneers.

I am concerned, however, as to whether everything that could be done elsewhere (in new and in traditional markets) is being done to create and cultivate these new clients. I wonder if we are clear thinking enough about where new interest is and whence it is coming. Whether we are clear that new types of collectors are emerging and whether we are changing our methods quickly enough to accommodate them.

I see them - these new collectors - as having considerable sums at their disposal. As turning away from other areas as those areas become prohibitively expensive. As often motivated more by sheer wonder ("can mere money really buy history?") than by purely academic concerns. Some are even motivated by investment or (and they are different) by a desire to feel secure about their purchases.

Auctioneers are beginning to react to the new breed of collectors. We are shedding the old patois and abbreviations. We are explaining why items are important and why they are interesting. We are illustrating more so that buyers can see as well as read about what is on offer.

There really can be little doubt that the book departments of major auction houses have greater resources at their command than individual booksellers and even than the ABA. Being part of an international concern we can call on more extensive marketing and press facilities, on client services, on taxation advisers, financial resources and the like. This gives us an almost ambassadorial role in the whole book world.

But, do what they will auction houses are not getting all the new buyers that are needed. And, coming to the market less often, auctioneers cannot nurture clients in the same way as the bookseller can. I say again that there will always be overlaps and conflicts of interest between booksellers and auctioneers and I am really not trying to kid you or myself that our paths will always coincide. But in this they do. We all need new clients and you can and do help get them. You can do much to foster them when they come to you.

The auction houses cannot and should not do all this work - but they can and do offer services to the dealer to help him in our common task

---- we send early proofs to many dealers

---- we arrange early viewing, often before catalogues are printed

---- we can give you credit arrangements

---- we can sometimes arrange interest-free credit with vendors

In short - we have a common interest in creating and cultivating new buyers and collectors. There is, I believe, more that all of us can do. I believe that some of what auction houses do can be seen to be of benefit and helpful to you.

I would like to switch to a different point. Many dealers used to think and doubtless many still do, that to put something into auction was an admission of their failure as a bookseller. I would like to recommend to you that in our changed world this is a view that might be reconsidered. Some will say, well he would say that, wouldn't he.

Nonetheless, I shall make my point. There are items that are highly speculative (upwards) for which we can achieve prices none of us could anticipate. There are some items for which we, not you, have the market. There are occasions when we can deal with whole estates and you might do better to use our services. Our sales can be the source of regular cashflow for you.

Some dealers have benefited tremendously through using the auction houses. From our point of view it also gives us a welcome opportunity to work with you. I am recommending that there are occasions when you might see auctions as one of the arrows in your quiver.

There is an increasing range of financial services that we can offer dealers in the forms of introductory commission, advances, rolling credit and loans which the professionals we employ would be pleased to discuss with you.

Finally, there are limitations within which I work but - in so far as I am not constrained - I have always tried to be fair and even generous in my dealings with the trade.

I have spoken of my respect and admiration for you and, in so far as I am able, I want to translate that respect and admiration into concrete action and, even help. I say again, our interests will not always coincide but nor will they always diverge. There is rivalry between auction houses and dealers, but there is a great deal of common ground. We should populate it.'

ROY DAVIDS (address, to remind you, written in 1989)