This is a magnificent volume purchased new by my wife and me in the late 1980s. During our over-50 years of marriage, we have collected many books relating to our heritage, travels, art and historical interests. This volume captures an era from our childhood, before the time of diesels, AMTRAK, interstate highways and unnerving airports, when steam ruled the landscape and urban and rural infrastructure, when the wonder of steam locomotives loomed over all. This also was an era when boxy large-format cameras and dark-room processing ruled art-photography, produced the particular sense of mood and imperfection many professionals feel no digital devices are incapable of delivering. To me, the books front and back cover images (1st & 2nd photos) say it all: gruff but gentlemanly conductors, steel-wheeled wooden luggage carts, pillared waiting decks, steam clouds filling the air, and solitary man standing unafraid before the behemoth. These type scenes dominated rural and big city stations alike, demonstrating a lonely/exciting connection between man and machine, all caught be Plowden in a past heyday of industrialized-society art photography.
My wife and I didnt collect for bedside reading, but rather for careful storage and only occasional display, in a word, for investment. We immediately covered our purchases in DemcoPaperfold jacketcovers, providing crystal clear 1.5 ml archive-safe polyester protection to dust jackets and precious cover boards (1st and 2nd photos). The covered books themselves then were stored flat in un-sealed protective archive-safe coverings of one sort or another available at the time (currently unsealed 2-gallon or larger archive-safe plastic food bags). As with most of our more important pieces, this volume was nominally opened only twice during its lifetime: selected pages gingerly and only partially lifted for brief inspection at time of purchase, and now again for purpose of the text and photos in this listing. The books condition is absolutely new, the binding and spine un-creased and totally as originally manufactured, cover board and page edges and corners straight and sharp, page stock totally clean and neither faded nor stained nor in any other way other than pristine. In effect, this is a near 30-year old volume as if delivered to the retail store new today.
The book measures 10 1/8" x 11 5/16" x 13/16", and weighs approximately 1 3/4 pounds. It is comprised of 160 pages, 27 heart-felt text by the author/photographer, the balance all one-to-a-page black-and-white plates. My research reveals the book to be long out-of-print, with only a relatively small and short production life to begin with.
In searching the internet for comparables, I find one group described as"like new" or "very good" (whatever in reality those terms mean), noting that they have been actively read and show "minimal" wear from life-long handling, priced in the $70-120 range. I then find a second group described as "new" and priced in the high-$500s. All considered, particularly our copys stated first edition (printed on the colophon page), its totally known one-owner provenance (no shortstops at potentially damaging estate sales, garage sales or flea markets along the way), and its pristine condition, I have priced at the high end, adjusting periodically as dictated by what I continue to see in the marketplace. The ultimate value of any collectible, of course, is whatever a legitimate seller and buyer agree it to be. In this spirit, I invite negotiation, asking only that it be with fair intent.
