The deadline for the Kirkpatrick Prize for Colorado book collectors under the age of 30 is nearing.
Wait. What?
Are you serious? There are enough under 30 book collectors in Colorado to warrant a competition and $1,000 prize?
Apparently.
But here’s the thing, the contestants generally don’t realize they’ve slipped into the world of book collecting.
They, like many, tend to mistakenly believe that it’s the province of wealthy older men who wear jackets with patches on the elbows and perhaps berets on their heads — you know, sort of professorial, sort of eccentric. And they’re called antiquarians, clearly a name that does not invoke “under 30.”
That group certainly makes up a bit of the world of book collectors, Taylor Kirkpatrick said, but in the last decade he’s noticed a growing interest among young people. He started the contest four years ago to encourage that interest.
“There’s an annual Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair and I would say 10 years ago when you went the population of attendees was in their 50s to 80s,” he said. “If you go now, I would tell you the demographic is that it does draw a younger crowd, especially for the ephemera and specialty items.”
This year’s winner will be honored at the book and paper fair, set for Aug. 17-18 at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.
He started the Kirkpatrick Prize to keep that interest growing and to encourage young collectors, who likely consider themselves book lovers, but not collectors. While there have been fewer than 15 entrants in each of the first three years, Kirkpatrick, who is 51, said he hopes to have more than 15 this year — and for the number to keep growing.
Becoming collectors
Sarah Klarich, the 2022 Kirkpatrick Prize winner, and Angie Neslin, the 2023 winner, both said they did not think of themselves as collectors until they learned about the prize.
“I was building my personal library,” Neslin said of the Spanish-language books she began acquiring in high school to help her learn Spanish. “A book collection, I thought, had to have antiques or things you spend a lot of money on.”
Her mom saw a flier about the prize at the Printed Page Bookshop in Denver and despite a fast-approaching entry deadline, Neslin decided to enter.
“It was probably a week of staying up late every night to work on the annotated bibliography and the essay,” she said. “It was a lot of work, but it was fun because it was a chance to reflect on my books.”
The submission requirements are for a bibliography of 20 or fewer works, and a statement of no more than 1,000 words about the collection. Entrants are also asked to describe five items that they’d like to add to their collection.
Klarich’s experience was similar — she saw a notice for the competition in the Printed Page’s newsletter.
“I’ve enjoyed reading since I was a kid and I started accumulating books,” she said. “I love to read and learn.”
The seed of her collection was a book assigned in her junior year of high school, “The Mismeasure of Man,” by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The controversial book, published in 1981, criticized the idea of biological determinism, or the theory that social and economic differences were based on inherited characteristics.
She grew up in southern Illinois and later moved to Chicago. She became increasing aware that history as taught in schools was “white-centric.” She wanted to hear the repressed voices, to learn the “grizzlier details.”
Her collection, entitled “America: How we got here, and how it’s going,” includes books on discriminatory policies and documents that have contributed to transformative times. The goal, she said, was to better understand the entirety of U.S, history and how it shapes the future.
Klarich and Neslin said they’ve come to recognize — and build on — other collections within their libraries, which are somewhat constrained by their budgets and bookshelf space.
Neslin, 30, who manages the family resource center at the Heart and Hand Center, is also building horror and short story collections. She’s a big fan of horror films and books and some of her Spanish-language short stories are “horror adjacent.”
A roommate recently moved out so she’s converting the second bedroom in her apartment to a library. Her long-distance partner, whom she met while living and working in the Dominican Republic, will join her this summer — bringing even more Spanish-language books.
“Doing the application for the Kirkpatrick Prize was a wonderful opportunity to draw out coherence to my bookshelves,” Neslin said.
Klarich, 31, a civil engineer with the City and County of Denver, said she and her partner were able to buy a condo last year and have been plotting how and where to build bookshelves for their ever-expanding libraries.
She has a collection of Balkan/Yugoslavia/Croatian books as a nod to her father’s ancestry and they both have graphic novel collections. She also collects maps, which she noted take much less space than books.
“We’ve been together three years, and now we’re going to merge the books,” she said, laughing about the commitment that entails. “We’re not married, but we’re essentially married.”
Learning the ropes
Older collectors and booksellers who specialize in collectibles recommend that new collectors find someone who’s interested in what they’re focusing on as a mentor. The best place to learn is at a brick and mortar bookshop.
Two of them — Printed Page Bookshop in Denver and Little Sages Books in Longmont — are sponsors of the Kirkpatrick Prize.
Printed Page co-owner Dan Danbom said successful collections often start with curiosity about something, whether it’s dinosaurs, fairies, submarines, castles or a particular author.
“For some people there’s this need or want or desire to really immerse yourself in a subject,” Danbom said, noting a few reasons that people, including young children, start collections.
“Collecting is a way to manage a little part of the world that no one else can interfere with,” he said. “And collectors love to tell other people about their collections. It’s fun to share stories. And the third reason is a sense of satisfaction at finishing a collection.”
Danbom said he’s made the transition from reader to collector to bookseller, although he does have his own library.
“I had a first edition of ‘Grapes of Wrath’ — it was beautiful — but I sold it,” he said, just a hint of wistfulness coming through. “It gets easier and easier to do.”
He now buys others’ collections, often at estate sales or after a call from a family member of a collector who has died. He’s documented some of these encounters in an ongoing blog and a book, “I Met Another Dead Man Today.”
His shop also occasionally holds free classes on book collecting.
“I bought a collection about a year ago that a guy had inherited from a friend who was a bookseller. They were packed and boxed and shipped to Denver in April 1973,” Danbom said. “The boxes were still sealed until March 2023. It was an amazing collection of science fiction, but it’s good that they were boxed up because he was a smoker.”
Kirkpatrick, president and CEO of Babson Farms, also has tales about book purchases, including one from a visit to an off-the-beaten path bookstore when he happened to be in New Hampshire.
“I walk into this bookstore and it is a hoarder’s dream. There’s no rhyme or reason, but the very first book I see … ‘Security Analysis’ by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, second edition — 25 cents. Then John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima‘ in a dust jacket — 10 cents. A short-story collection — 21 volumes of Guy de Maupassant short stories — beautiful bound books,” Kirkpatrick said, breathlessly.
He piled stuff on the counter and the seller found an old banana box to load them up, offering the lot for $20 even.
“I should have kept looking — but didn’t want him to change his mind,” Kirkpatrick said. “I felt like I won the lottery — like it was the greatest caper of all time.”
His love of books started in childhood, when a neighbor gave him a copy of “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.” He read it a “million times,” and when he was 5 or 6 years old, he asked for a headboard bookcase for his bed. He spent hours arranging books.
When he started to make money, he took collecting more seriously and focused on authors he was deeply interested in: Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, in that order. He has 150 versions of Aesop’s fables.
As he collected, he became a benefactor of literacy programs and libraries — and he started the Kirkpatrick Prize to encourage young collectors. He modeled it after a similar prize — Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize for women under 30. It’s sponsored by Honey & Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn, New York.
Kirkpatrick’s advice to young or just starting collectors:
“Collect what you love. For some, it’s the aesthetics, the love of Victorian bindings or beautiful floral bindings. Go after it with gusto. Find somebody who has an interest in it that can be a good mentor.
“It’s easy to make bonehead mistakes; first editions mistakes; replica mistakes; Book of the Month Club mistakes that replicate first editions. You can get bit. When you’re getting started go to a bricks and mortar store. A lot of people think they’re listing something correctly on eBay and they’re not and some know it’s not what they’re selling. Find a reputable bookseller.”
Neslin has a bit of advice, too.
“Remember it’s not about how much a book is worth,” she said. “Books are important because they build bridges to other people and cultures. They were bridges for me in meeting other people.”
