“I drove around the country hunting in bookstores. I was able to drive the whole United States and it didn’t cost me anything because I traded as I went. You could find some amazing things in bookstores back then. I made a good living wholesaling to bookstores.”

The good old fashioned mail service was also the bread and butter of book dealers before the internet. “There was a publication called AB Bookman’s Weekly that was published every week. Dealers and collectors from all over the world would get it and start making phone calls right away. If there was something you wanted, you had to be the first call in to order it. I also sold a lot of books that way, by taking out an ad in the publication. But there were no cell phones back then, so once your listings went up, you had to sit by the phone and take the orders. Sometimes I’d have my mom do that for me and she loved it,” Emerson says with a laugh.

Though rare book dealing used to be a thriving business, there is very little in the way of formal education for those eager to learn the trade. The majority of the knowledge needed is gained simply by doing, by being out in the field buying and trading.

(There are some rare book schools in existence, however. We’ve put together a list of 5 Rare Book Schools to learn the book trade, if you’re dreaming of a career in books.)

“It was very important to have a good reference library,” says Emerson, “it was how you researched the value of a book. It was all done with physical, compiled resources. If you didn’t have good reference materials of your own, public libraries were usually good to use. The San Diego public library was a great resource.”