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Bibliophiles unite! 2025 Albuquerque Antiquarian Book Fair returns with novels, maps, photographs and more
A selection of available books sits on display at the Albuquerque Antiquarian Book Fair in 2023.
A book of New Mexico cattle brands published in 1900.
A map showing the New Mexico Territory when it reached all the way to California.
The University of New Mexico’s first yearbook.
Picture postcards with images of Route 66.
Those are four examples of the broad range of material — including books, maps and photographs — expected to be for sale at the 2025 Albuquerque Antiquarian Book Fair.
“It’s quite a fun cultural affair. It’s been going on since 1992,” said Mark Holmen, the fair’s director and one of the 28 dealers who have signed up for the fair.
Scott Free, owner of Downtown Books in Albuquerque, said he’ll be selling a variety of material.
They include, Free said, small poetry books signed by Jimmy Santiago Baca, Leslie Marmon Silko, Julia Alvarez and Sherman Alexie, “The Art of Revolution: Castro’s Cuba 1959-1970” with an introductory essay by Susan Sontag and a first edition of a five-volume set titled “Leading Facts of New Mexico History” by Ralph Emerson Twitchell. The set was published in 1914, he said.
“The fair creates a lot of excitement around the antiquarian book scene. And it’s created a resurgence of interest in antiquarian books,” he said. “I’m glad Mark has kept it going.”
Tim Hagaman, a dealer who lives in Mora, said he enjoys the camaraderie among dealers at the fair and is pleased to see a growing interest among younger people in the antiquarian book business.
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Hagaman himself has been specializing in the Western Americana subjects of “outlaws, lawmen and cowboys.”
He said he’s been selling books, maps, newspapers, photographs and “any type of ephemera — documents, letters, anything made to be thrown away that still exists.”
Hagaman said he also displays some of his material in exhibits at museums and libraries “to make sure the public gets to see the history of New Mexico and the Southwest.”
André Dumont, the owner of Dumont Maps and Books in Santa Fe, considers it an important regional fair.
“My specialty is antiquarian maps, and I think I’m the only one at the fair who specializes in (that),” Dumont said in a phone interview. “It introduces folks to the antiquarian trade and stimulates an interest in the hobby of collecting.”
The dealers participating in this year’s fair come from six states — New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania dealer is Buckingham Books of Greencastle.
Jay Buckingham, co-owner of Buckingham Books, wrote in an email that his business has participated in the Albuquerque book fair for several years.
Like Hagaman, Buckingham Books specializes in Western Americana, “offering rare and important books, photographs, documents and other material on the history of the American West.”
Buckingham said in the email he’ll be bringing a variety of items on New Mexico and the region, including material on cattle ranching, the Apache Wars, mountain men, the fur trade, mining and other aspects of the region’s history.
