8 fascinating collectibles spotted at a rare books fest, including an 1882 L.A. phonebook

A dog-eared punk zine flutters adjacent a vellum-bound folio. An out-of-print tome sits beside a scribbled screenplay. This past weekend, Rare Books L.A. transformed Union Station’s historical summons hallway into a bustling biblio-bazaar, drafting much than 50 antiquarian booksellers and collectors from crossed the country.

Some came hunting for uncommon concern pieces, others simply to clasp past successful their hands. Twice a year, the just celebrates printed treasures successful each their collectible forms — with the adjacent lawsuit acceptable for February successful Pasadena.

Visitors assemblage Rare Books L.A. astatine Union Station connected Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025.

(William Liang/For The Times)

We wandered the sold-out aisles and asked sellers what mightiness marque readers bash a double-take. Here’s what turned our heads.

The archetypal variation of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was connected merchantability for $225,000.

(William Liang / For The Times)

The backmost of a archetypal variation “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” has a typo successful “philosopher.”

(William Liang / For The Times)

Among the fair’s big-ticket items was a uncommon archetypal variation of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” — J.K. Rowling’s 1997 debut— offered astatine an eye-watering $225,000. “For books printed successful the past 30 years, there’s Harry Potter, and past there’s everything else,” said Pasadena trader Dan Whitmore. “It stands successful a benignant of a class of its own.” This peculiar transcript is 1 of conscionable 500 from the archetypal hardcover printing successful the U.K. Half of those went to libraries, Whitmore said, making them acold little desirable to collectors. And past determination are the typos: a duplicated “1 wand” connected Page 51 and a misspelling connected the backmost cover, wherever the rubric appears arsenic “Philospher’s Stone.”

This 1882 L.A. phonebook includes conscionable 90 names.

(William Liang / For The Times)

On April 3, 1882, the metropolis permitted the Los Angeles Telephone Co. to drawstring lines wrong metropolis limits. A week later, L.A. printed its archetypal telephone book. Most aboriginal directories were tossed erstwhile a caller 1 arrived, but Peter Harrington Rare Books has a uncommon surviving copy, titled “Los Angeles Telephone Book (1882),” priced astir $13,000.

The single, folded expanse lists conscionable 90 names, mostly businesses adjacent historical downtown specified arsenic liveries, saloons, physicians, mills, druggists and the section undertaker. Included are instructions for calling the cardinal office, on with one- and two-digit numbers for USC’s archetypal president, M.M. Bovard (dial “58”), and the Los Angeles Club (dial “38”). Seen astatine auction lone doubly successful modern records, the directory is simply a uncommon portion of aboriginal Californiana — arsenic overmuch a grounds of the city’s earliest telecommunications arsenic a societal snapshot of fin de siècle Los Angeles.

A missive from T.S. Eliot to Dr. Absalom Minola, a cat.

(William Liang / For The Times)

In the 1950s and ’60s, a literary-minded feline named Dr. Absalom Minola — penning via his “butler,” aboriginal UC Berkeley archivist Jim Kantor — began sending letters to authors, editors and nationalist figures. The joke? No 1 knew they were corresponding with a feline. And they wrote back.

T.S. Eliot — nary alien to feline change egos — responded earnestly to a poetic quibble. Julia Child offered tips for speeding up custard. Joyce Carol Oates was grateful idiosyncratic was speechmaking her books. Agatha Christie graciously engaged with a critique involving the connection “vole.” There are letters from Buckingham Palace, Dwight Eisenhower and Dow Chemical (which mailed Minola a replacement for a container of defective integrative wrap). The binder, offered by Kate Mitas, Bookseller for $5,000, contains 74 pieces of correspondence — epistolary catfishing astatine its finest and 1 of the large undiscovered literate hoaxes of the 20th century.

“The Monkey Wrench Gang” by Edward Abbey is astir eco-saboteurs.

(William Liang / For The Times)

Ken Sanders is thing of a people leader successful the antiquarian world: a notorious book-thief hunter, founding subordinate of Earth First! Foundation, a conservation nonprofit, and “Antiques Roadshow” appraiser. Based successful Salt Lake City, he’s agelong championed outlaw writers, occidental Americana and literate misfits — nary much truthful than his precocious friend, Edward Abbey. In 1985, helium commissioned an R. Crumb-illustrated variation of “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” Abbey’s cult caller astir a ragtag unit of eco-saboteurs waging warfare connected bulldozers, dams and the American West’s improvement boom.

Now, marking 50 years some successful the commercialized and of “Monkey Wrench,” Sanders has released a $300 deluxe commemorative container set. He called Abbey’s caller “relevant arsenic ever,” some a emotion missive to America and a crisp meditation connected the morality of unit — particularly erstwhile aimed astatine the systems and machinery of power.

The deluxe variation of Salvador Dalí’s mentation of “Alice’s Adventures successful Wonderland,” arsenic seen astatine Rare Books L.A.

(William Liang / For The Times)

Salvador Dalí’s reimagining of “Alice’s Adventures successful Wonderland” includes sinister-looking playing cards.

(William Liang / For The Times)

In 1969, Salvador Dalí sent Alice connected a psychedelic trip. His surrealist reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s Victorian children’s novel, “Alice’s Adventures successful Wonderland,” distorts the nonsense and whimsy: melting clocks and anxious White Rabbits, sinister playing cards and caterpillars connected mushrooms. Through it all, a rope-skipping Alice cuts crossed each lush section similar a hallucination successful motion. This deluxe variation of “Alice’s Adventures successful Wonderland” — from David Brass Rare Books successful Calabasas for $19,500 — is 1 of conscionable 200, signed successful pencil by Dalí and among a tiny fistful marked hors commerce, meaning it was reserved for the steadfast and adjacent collaborators.

A poster with the representation of Emiliano Zapata reimagined arsenic a mascot for the farmworkers’ movement, thought to person been hung up successful a tract bureau oregon waved astatine a protest.

(William Liang / For The Times)

A striking 1970s poster from Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Press features Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata — firearm successful 1 hand, sword successful the different — reimagined arsenic a mascot for California’s United Farm Workers. Printed connected dense banal successful Delano, Calif., wherever the UFW was headquartered, the poster shows pinholes successful its corners and chipped edges — suggesting it was erstwhile tacked up successful a tract bureau oregon waved astatine a protest. “It’s a reasonably scarce piece,” said bookseller Teri Osborn. “And it’s decidedly applicable to the tone of the moment, everything we’ve conscionable seen successful the past 10 months.” One transcript is held by the University of Michigan, though fewer others look successful organization collections. Priced astatine $950.

Unused Scratchers from the California lottery’s archetypal years.

(William Liang / For The Times)

The California State Lottery debuted successful 1985 astatine 1 dollar apiece with a $1-million jackpot. Biblioctopus has a rare, implicit acceptable of each 40 Scratchers from the lotto’s archetypal 5 years. It’s the archetypal postulation of its kind, according to Jennefer Hime, whose begetter and the bookshop’s founder, Mark Hime, assembled the acceptable retired of axenic collector’s instinct. “That’s conscionable however his encephalon worked,” she says of his keen oculus that transformed mundane ephemera into a invaluable humanities archive. California’s aboriginal Scratchers correspond a unsocial section successful gambling history, showcasing the era’s design, themes and prizes passim those formative years. Framed together, they’d beryllium a stunning show for immoderate lotto aficionado.

A vintage cigaret instrumentality was converted into a publication dispenser astatine Rare Books L.A.

(William Liang / For The Times)

Mister F., a foldable publication with nods to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” was dispensed from a converted cigaret instrumentality astatine Rare Books L.A.

(William Liang / For The Times)

If this year’s Rare Books L.A. had an unofficial theme, it was Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Netflix partnered with the just and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles to assistance beforehand Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel, successful prime theaters Oct. 17. Many editions of “Frankenstein” were connected display, including a 1934 cult favourite from illustrator Lynd Ward, often credited arsenic the precursor of the graphic novel. But a delightfully unexpected tribute came courtesy of Johnson Rare Books & Archives (Covina, Calif.), who brought a repurposed Art Deco cigaret instrumentality to vend “Mister F.,” a letterpress mini-book with quotes from “Frankenstein” and illustrations by Angel Bomb’s Todd Thyberg. The accordion-style booklet is tiny by design, but the instrumentality is simply a fitting retro-futurist tribute to Shelley’s enduring monster.