Buying with Confidence

Your Assurance of Professional and Ethical Standards

The Fair is organised by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) and is officially sanctioned by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the largest trade organisation of its kind in the world.

This means that the customer can rely upon the experience and professionalism of participating dealers and the authenticity of items available for purchase.

History of the London International Antiquarian Book Fair

The idea that the ABA could organize book fairs to give provincial antiquarian booksellers (of which there was still at least one in most of Britain’s market towns in the 1950’s) a temporary shop window in London came from a small group of booksellers who, in the summer of 1957, rented one of Sotheby’s galleries in Bond Street during the auctioneer’s closed season and offered their books for sale on some simple shelving.