Antique Books

history | mission | officers

The Antiquarian Book Dealers Association of South Carolina (ABDASC) is made up of persons and businesses engaged in the selling of rare and out-of-print books. The Association fosters the appreciation and sales of antiquarian books, prints and manuscripts and promotes professional and ehtical standards for its members.

ABDASC is a long-time participant in the SCBook Festival and offers many unusual and hard to find antiquarian books and other emphemera. Book appraisal services are also offered at the festival.

ABDASC Officers

History of the Antiquarian Book Dealers' Association of South Carolina

In the fall of 1995, a number of the active sellers of used, out-of-print and antiquarian books in South Carolina discussed, informally, the desirability of forming an organization that would promote and publicize their efforts to serve the book collecting community and that would also encourage cooperation to achieve that purpose within the bookselling community. For many years, only a few booksellers in the state offered used books for sale. Columbia was the home to Gittman’s, a bookstore that opened just before World War I, flourished for more than half-a-century, and sold rare books in addition to new titles. Charleston was an early center of the book trade and, from time to time, booksellers would also offer used copies to their patrons. Schindler’s Antique Shop and The Book Basement were two of the better-known establishments in that city in the Twentieth Century. By the 1970s and 1980s, however, other sellers across the state offered used and antiquarian volumes from their shops or antique malls. And by the mid-1990s, there were more than a dozen active dealers who wanted to form an organization that would provide services that would help both booksellers and book collectors. Organizations already existed in the neighboring states of North Carolina and Georgia and both groups printed a members’ directory and sponsored antiquarian book fairs in their states.