February, 2025.

Greetings and welcome.

Over the past 40 years dealing in the antiquarian book business my basic approach has been to treat everyone I meet kindly, friendly and with respect, like potential life-time connections. Basically, whoever you are, wherever you are around the U.S. or the world, I am looking to be a reliable source- an easy going and relaxed dealer who is on your side when it comes to commerce in old books, maps and paper. 
My exposure to the type of material you find here is deep and broad over this time, I’ve examined countless millions of individual old and antique book and paper artifacts and my personal collection runs into the hundreds of thousands of collectible historical old paper items of all types and eras, selected from multiples of items around them. I am surrounded with antiquarian material everywhere I go all day long, it’s in almost every room, often in piles, cases full, etc.

Everything I handle is printed long ago (typically over 50 years old but more often 100 plus years ago), primarily on paper or any hand made miniature objects, mostly in loose single sheet format or as books, ephemera, etc. This deliberately and carefully curated selection of antique and vintage items possesses fairly obvious historical, aesthetic and often monetary value, and here-in lies their modern appeal for all of us.

I stand behind everything I sell and offer an Unconditional Satisfaction Guaranteed 30-day Returns.

Authenticity of everything I offer is unconditionally guaranteed for life to be as described, you will never buy "fakes" or reproductions posing as old, etc. from me of any kind, period. I’ve had a 30 days no hassle refund policy since day one, and I'm happy to report is rarely used. Over the years I have received back (for any reason, actually) fewer than 1 out of every 5,000+ orders I process, maybe even fewer than that, so this is a good sign that the pictures and listing descriptions match the the object and expectations of the buyer as it is seen upon arrival. 

My positive digital rare book dealer reputation is readily verifiable for instance by my membership in IOBA (Independent Online Booksellers Association), IOBA is a vibrant and intelligent professional association which at it's core cares about books existing and being kept alive in the world. IOBA actively monitor's its members and the public, so no deadbeats or cheats allowed. I also have extensive multi-decades 100% positive feedback on my various eBay ID's, but that is a different realm unto itself. 

You are dealing with a real person who cares about the world and other people and is doing their best to generate only positive energy everywhere I go and with everything I do. Whether In person or online, it’s the same set of basic, long widely recognized rules and principles that apply, which is take care of others and others will take care of you.

Once you buy something and it's been shipped (Mon- Friday) always with visible online tracking, I'm on your side. I want the parcel to get to you because in the end because I want you to be happy. Your satisfaction is the natural end result of the whole endeavor. My hope with every transaction is you'll feel satisfied and be happy to return in the future for more commerce.

Thank you for your support over all these years! I’m looking forward to creating many more.

Brian DiMambro
Dover, NH
March, 2025

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

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wait, have you actually continued to scroll down the page? really? why? 
don't you have more important things to do than learn anything more about me? 
You must.

My advice would be to go do other more important things first, maybe even right now, and then possibly come back here later- if you get around to it, because who knows what will happen next, right? Nobody truly knows the future, we only imagine and intuit it. 

Also, as an further precaution, please only read on if you have a (more or less) inquiring mind which is open to all (most) concepts, ideas and possibilities and attached to none (or very few, anyway). Otherwise, you have unfortunately inadvertently scrolled onto the wrong part of the page and you should immediately click away before being subjected to any more of my independent and (perhaps, slightly?) unconventional manner of thinking, which might (or might not) puzzle some of your long-held basic assumptions and beliefs. Please be forewarned for what could lie ahead. I myself don't even know yet what it will be, and won't until I type it (I can’t predict the future, I can only try to guide or help create it) but I do know (from experience) I should probably warn you since I won't have many guard rails on myself sitting in front of a computer writing extemporaneously like this.

Because, in fact, if we’re all being totally honest as grown-ups, ultimately, who am I, anyway? right? Who is anyone, really? We're all just inherently flawed and imperfect beings here for such a brief speck of time, the whole enterprise is a vast cosmic mystery, and look how fast it’s all gone so far! So what I mean is, let's start to be real about what we consider important & worthy of our continual attention and why we consider it to be so. Otherwise it’s easy to waste our very limited mental and physical energy on thoughts, beliefs, actions and matters of no actual significance or which possess little meaningful value for us.

In the final analysis, isn't virtually everything we think and believe about ourselves and others as fact ultimately simply invented stories we tell ourselves and anyone who'll listen? A narrative we’ve actually pretty much simply made up inside our own subjective minds? All driven and created by an Ego, that universal false sense of self that pretends it’s running the show and unfortunately often does?

Don’t we all actually possess largely untrained minds, over which we have little or no control, or even conscious awareness of most of the time? Aren't we all functioning in a type of day-dreaming trance, while simultaneously believing we’re wide awake? Mistaking our unconscious and reactive thoughts, repetitive subconscious habits & beliefs and emotional hopes for larger, universally believed facts and truths?

I think this simple basic scenario helps explain what is currently happening in America today and likely explains a lot about what is going on around the world as well. There is a whole lot of unconsciousness day-dreaming, lack of consciousness and detachment from any known basic empirical reality going on everywhere right now, the intensity of the global consciousness vibrational energy seems to be increasing by the day.

ok, fine, you're now officially here. so, welcome!

Please allow me to now use this opportunity you've so graciously granted me to (unintentionally but) most likely bore you out of your mind (remember- you're free to click away at any point, which I have already endorsed and recommended) by sharing my personal philosophical thoughts and perspective on how caring about and collecting antiquarian books, maps and ephemera (meaning: old, rare, pleasing to look at and desirable on some level) relates to living a more meaningful real-world, physical life in our ever increasingly (now primarily) digital, virtual, globally interconnected, hyper-post-modern existence.

Information and basic interaction which is gathered and assimilated online versus in the physical world of books and objects represents and embodies different types of basic etheric energy realms of human existence. This reality in turn impacts what it means to think and be a human being in each realm, meaning digital and physical. And the way these two divergent realms are currently interacting quite likely means something fairly significant, deep and lasting for all of us. Just look around- what we all see now are just the early stages of this shift and how it impacts individuals, groups, societies and global connections/ interactions. 

Please keep in mind I’m mostly speculating (ok, let's be honest, rambling) here, I’m not actually deeply convinced of nor married to any particular thought or belief nor am I strongly attached to any particular position about most things. So I’m not trying to convince or persuade you of anything in particular with these thoughts and ideas- I'm just sharing how various things look to me.  As proof, just ask my wife about how clearly I see things as I look around in the world and she'll tell you. So will my four children, [who have all at this point graduated from college and are out contributing in positive ways to society (you're welcome, world! Growing up I always told them no negative energy on social media, nor in person, etc. Life is a splendid dream, so remember that always and never spread negative energy around you), but they are still of course still learning and thus possess and share views entirely their own, possibly at variance with my claims. Youth is wasted on the young who think they know everything, right?].

To begin with, overall, I’m typically trying to let go both mentally and physically these days, and not hold on- not grasp at anything, like ideas, thoughts, objects, specific beliefs or truths which I feel a need to defend or fight over and so on. Continually letting go of mental attachments is incredibly liberating in ways impossible to describe. If you give it a try I think you’ll quickly see why it's widely recognized as being true (meaning a claim verifiable by others, not just yourself).

It appears to be true that the less mental clutter and baggage you carry around in your head about the past  the future and all the mind endlessly chatters on and on about (endless repetitive thinking), the more space (read- silence) you create and this space between thoughts allows for superior and more inspired thoughts to arise, take hold and grow.

It's a bit like cultivating specific strains of thought and manners of thinking as opposed to just allowing the mind to randomly drift around and do whatever it does while hoping it will produce a beautiful life result that makes you feel happy inside. Not very likely. In fact, almost certainly not the result.

It’s taken me a long time (and a lot of effort) to think like I currently do and since everything keeps changing, I’m still learning. So please keep in mind most of what I'm saying here is part of a larger ongoing project- a work in progress if you like- a path of discovery, continually re-evaluating ideas and beliefs in light of fresh information and insights. 

It’s sort of like contemplations made while floating down a Maine river on an inner tube, on a warm sunny lazy Summer holiday afternoon, pleasantly watching the world slowly drift by. Observing everything as it simply passes and reveals itself naturally, using the relaxed and ever expanding sense of the present moment (the now) to help you become absorbed and lost in all you can bring your senses to observe- all you see, smell, hear, feel and intuit, paying particular attention to your etheric energy; all without any pushing or resistance to simply allowing what is happening. 

If we go way back in time to when I was around 12, back when televisions were still widely offered in b&w and most Americans read daily newspapers for information, I've been dealing in a wide range of old books, maps, comics and paper ephemera-and that was now a long time ago (well, half a century to be precise, which is not anything I thought I'd ever hear myself say). My primary interest and emphasis over this time has always been upon factors such as historical, visual and cultural appeal, pleasing graphic art and often the invisible but noticeable etheric energy impact I can somehow feel but not articulate completely. 

I only offer things I happen to like well enough to have chosen to have around me, meaning the website is a bit like my personal collection, offered for sale (a type of virtual private museum with price tags on the objects) - an ever changing selection of interesting and graphically appealing historical artifacts currently available, if you'd like to purchase them. Act soon however, because virtually everything found here is somehow unique and one of a kind. There might be others, but they won't look exactly like this one and once the one you see is gone, it's gone forever.

I've always been into virtually all the visual arts and music as well as physical fitness, gymnastics and martial arts. I like color, imagination, fantasy, beauty, humor, clever and memorable story-telling, unique personal creative expression of all kinds, objects of historical interest, the Tao, and so on. 

I often have music playing in the background as I go through my day, I have Bose speakers in the various rooms I use as offices and work spaces of different types. Ibiza Lounge on Spotify is currently a big go to; I also follow podcasts of numerous global dj’s who favor a melodic, relaxed chill vibe such as Jaytech, Hernan Cataneo, Elke Kleijn, Nora en Pure, Silk Music, Melodic Sessions, Kyau & Albert, Shingo Nakamura, deep sunset house and poolside lounge, melodic and orchestral electronica, Global music and world cultures of all kinds, eras, countries, styles, etc. The world is overflowing with talented musicians, the weekly (daily) flow of fresh material is incredible. I also listen to lots of audio books, lectures, interviews and discussions with all sorts of inspired and visionary thinkers.

Personally, I am proud of my Italian immigrant heritage and it defined me for much of my early life- back when I believed that my random, fleeting thoughts and passing feelings represented some larger actual reality itself. Rather than what it actually did, which was represent my own incredibly limited, subjective and largely factually incorrect understanding of everything that existed and was transpiring around me. That major perceptual blind spot we all possess actually continues and stays with many of us our entire lifetime, until something somehow jolts us out of it (such as illness, death, loss, etc.). That’s when we begin what could best be described as a Zen Satori process of waking up. Alan Watts was among the first modern western masters to speak directly about this process at length and he remains one of the basic starting points for all roads of inquiry into what makes being alive meaningful and why.

In the mid-1920's, now about 100 years ago now, both of my grandparents came to New England in America by steamship from central Italy. My grandfather fought in WWI for Italy and was a German prisoner of war in Eritrea, North Africa. When he arrived here, he started out as a specialty rose florist and became a self-employed farmer/ merchant his entire life. He lived into his 90's, having lived the true American dream of the 20th century- of coming to America, raising a large family and creating a better life. 
My father, after serving in the Korean war (in Japan), eventually got a Master’s degree and was also a self-employed business owner and merchant during most of his adult working life. He lived until he was almost 90. 
I've likewise now been self-employed for basically my entire adult working life- aside from my youthful years in U.S. Military Service and a few college jobs until I was around 24 years old- such as waiter, retail shop clerk, line cook, elementary school librarian, Amway distributor (haha, it’s actually good training!), etc.

At this stage of the game, my central life intention is to stay healthy and vibrant until I'm at least 98 years old- 102 might also be ok if I'm still able to walk around, meditate (and therefore think straight), be useful in life and drink a Duvel beer in it’s proper glass.

I got my start being an independent antiquarian dealer (old & rare objects of all kinds) (thanks parents for allowing it to happen!) at a Rockville, Maryland Sunday flea market when I was about 12. I sold some old children's Oz books I had found one hot summer day up in my grandfathers farmhouse attic while visiting him, along with some random WWII field gear my various uncles had brought back from their Army and military WWII era services. I also sold that day some of my own personal comic book collection (haha, I was like 12 then) that I no longer wanted. I was immediately hooked on being a merchant and loved the energy of all of it- the entire process of interacting with customers and people in general and constantly moving money around, always doing commerce with things I really liked and were actually mine (so I wasn’t working on, say, commission or as a salesman).

I somehow thought (knew?) deep within, yup, this is my calling for this lifetime. I still have that feeling inside me today, it’s like there is some type of attractive magnetic energy force going on between me and all the items you see here. This interaction has been literally manifesting a world into existing out of an open ended flow of buying and selling attractive and interesting old books, maps, prints, and you name it (antiquarian material). If it’s old, catches my eye or looks nice and appeals to me somehow historically, visually or etherically, then I’m likely in. 

After having a paper route, I got my first "real" kid job at 13-14 working a couple afternoons a week and Saturdays in a local comic book shop in Gaithersburg, Maryland (it was called the Vault of Comics, run by Andy Harper- to whom I remain deeply grateful for his incredible support until this day). His shop ad is in one of the earliest Overstreet guides. This was roughly 1975. 

Entering the U.S. Coast Guard directly after High School graduation, along with 4 years of college followed. Upon college graduation with my highly in demand B.A. degree in (Art) History (it made me happy getting a liberal arts degree, so that was a total win. Plus, I’ve never once regretted it. And, I've actually made use of it almost every single day of my life so far on some level!). I directly entered graduate School once I graduated from college, but a year spent there quickly taught me I didn't truly want to pursue a lifetime working in academia, law or museum administration, etc. or the Corporate business world, nor was the structured military life suitable for me. That’s basically what I had learned up until then. It’s very helpful actually to learn what you don’t like as early as you can in life. That way you can minimize the amount of time you spend doing it. Which is what I decided to do. 

I basically decided right then to completely throw myself at the antiquarian and rare book dealing game full-time, as an independent and free-spirited shop owner! No constraints on my thinking, behavior, no holding back or wasting time spent wandering down dead-end paths, sharing office spaces under fluorescent lights or having bosses control me and my time tell me what to do, etc. I was determined to make my dream of being an independent antiquarian dealer come true. And so by summoning forth (and working my tail off 7 days a week for years), I opened my first public antiquarian book shop in downtown Portsmouth, NH near Prescott Park in 1985-6. and it immediately took flight- in retrospect it looks almost like a rocket blast off. The world was sooo different back then, people just thought and acted differently, way more people read books and pondered things, everything was different in that now long distant, final pre-internet era world. Back before everyone became hooked to their digital devices and glowing screens, almost as if on a form of societal digital crack.

Since those early pre-internet days I've been offering an uninterrupted and endless strong flow of old, rare, desirable, historically interesting antiquarian items with a underlying emphasis on visual appeal. I’m not seeking or offering primarily trophy pieces and high spots as much as I am into the whole vast world of great old cultural artifacts with a modern appeal that tweaks my interest and draws my attention. It doesn't need to be valuable to interest me. In fact, when you put pure monetary "value" slightly off to one side and focus more on the more pleasurable eye appeal or historical draw aspects, then a much larger and more interesting world of antique items opens up.

There are loads of rare and wonderful historical ephemeral items currently available at such relatively low prices that some day people will look back to sites like this full of this sort of material as we might to a website like this had it existed even 50 years ago.  It's heart stopping to think what might be acquired 50 years ago for pennies on the dollar today but which seemed like high prices at that time. Value is a funny thing, in that it's highly malleable in most realms of life and most people appear unaware of that. The connection between thoughts, beliefs and mind-sets about value in markets is well documented in the stock market, the gold market, all commodities, real estate, interest rates, land, you name it.

Another aspect of value is what might seem like a lot of money when viewed from one view point, wearing one set of glasses on could  (and likely) does look completely differently if you take those glasses off and put on this other pair sitting over here. The ones where you suddenly can see how scarce it actually is, how pleasing it is, what great eye appeal or age patina, how nice it looks, and how little that money actually means to you in the big picture. And if by chance the money means more than the item, then ok, no worries, fair enough. But not perceiving value doesn't mean it isn't lying there in open view. It might rather be you simply weren't wearing the set of glasses which would have allowed you to see it differently. In the end, you're simply on a different wave length from the object. That's all.  

Along the way I've had 20+ years operating a seven days a week, relatively large, active public used & rare book shop in different locations in Portsmouth, NH, (starting on State St. and ended with owning the Buckminster House at the corner of Islington & Bridge street), followed for the past 20+ years by an endless flow of daily digital offerings catalogued from both downtown Dover (565 & 567 Central Ave) and the near-by bucolic country location of Milton Mills, NH (very top pic above, recently sold after enjoying it for 20 years. The other pics show parts of my newer work space in downtown Dover). 

Numerous bright and well educated assistants have greatly helped me the entire way, up until very recently (end of 2024) when I have pulled way back and begun a "semi-retired", far more leisurely and relaxed lifestyle and approach to business. Their efforts allowed things to happen I never could have accomplished alone.

Despite being what I call "semi-retired", I’m still entirely engaged and active in the world around me and life in general. This basically now means I only sit and do computer work when I feel inspired to, not all day long, endlessly online with no off button. For the past several years I've been a twice-daily meditator and try to spend time daily walking outside in nature (we’re surrounded by endless trails, parks and beaches), reading meaningful & interesting books, listening to spirituality and philosophical discussions, talks and lectures, traveling around the U.S. & Europe and generally spending as much time focused in the present moment as possible. Digital life is useful and great, I wouldn't want to live without it now, but for me, it's constantly being consciously minimized since the real physical world of here and now, off a screen, is better. The glows are different and so are the feelings they generate.

I used to actively and fairly unwittingly participate in various social media platforms such as making over 2,200 Youtube video shorts, running shop and personal FB pages, "Twitter" (X- heaven help us all), Instagram, etc. It was all good fun while it lasted, but doing it daily eventually metastasized and totally corrupted my etheric sense of well being. Focusing my attention and mental energy on the digital world didn't result in anything resembling peace of mind nor internal serenity or mental balance, etc. The whole digital public realm is thoroughly corrupted with monetary underpinnings in ways difficult to fully articulate but which entirely capture and corrupt the model to the enormous benefit of a relative few and detriment of most.

If we're still being honest, the intense, never ending pace of the digital super-highway combined with the super enhanced, AI-driven monetization of attention-seeking manipulation of virtually all public digital life & social media generates a largely negative, and entirely unhealthy etheric and mental energy flow (in me anyway) which doesn't allow me to feel harmonious, happy or peaceful at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps spending too much time in front a glowing screen alters a person’s most basic etheric energy in a manner that may not be beneficial to either that person individually nor to society or other human beings around them. Too much glowing screen helps to energetically disconnect people away from being and feeling human - it distracts and alters their brain waves in ways we are only beginning to understand and in fact hardly know anything about (aside from it's almost certainly not positive in large quantities nor in the long term). 

I am now committed to paying close attention to how I actually feel inside and using my innate "etheric" guidance system (Google it if you don’t already know what it means by now). We all have an etheric without question (some might call it conscious soul, or some other name) but we're typically not taught to be aware of or pay attention to it (although many people are, if perhaps only vaguely). And so we mostly miss, ignore or blindly think our way past it being there. When you start to pay attention to it, everything starts to change to your benefit. Stuart Wilde talks about this concept a lot and I think he had it right decades ago.

I'm now highly sensitive to and fully aware of all the digital screen manipulation of my (precious) attention, time and energy. I go out of my way to detach from being sucked into it all, so I'm not living my life on digital call 24/7. Daily constantly online public digital life is approaching a black hole dark energy vortex and it is (mostly) just not for me except in very small bites. It's fascinating what's going on right now with basic information flow, human brains, cognition, mass delusion, Wetiko (well worth googling and reading about), loss of agreed upon societal reference anchor points, never unplugging or turning the flow off, and so on.

I'm currently quite taken up with the writings and thoughts in the various books of Daniel Kahneman, Stuart Wilde (plus all his audio books are just unbelievably great fun to listen to him read- what an incredible and singular character he was!), Alan Watts, Louise Hay (what a life story), Eckhart Tolle (Now & New Earth should be required reading), Dr. Joe Dispenza (holy smokes, read You are the Placebo if you want to have your mind blown), Dr. Wayne Dyer (incredible), Esther & Jerry Hicks (way out there, but wonderful once you let go and open your mind), Mel Robbins (rule #1-don’t sleep with your phone beside the bed!!), Sam Harris (Waking Up app and how his mind works as he speaks about anything in the endless podcast interviews and discussions one can find such as his recent Big Think interview), Yuval Noah Harrari (every book is inspired) and Sir David Hawkins (to name just a few) and increasingly am seeing the world through their ideas, observations and insights. It's inspiring how many smart and awake people there are in the world, and how easy it is to have direct access to their thoughts and watch their minds work in real time discussions. Hay House is a great nexus hub to begin a search with.

I believe Albert Einstein had it right when he essentially said flat out that energy vibrations are the key to understanding the Universe -(and therefore) how they work in relationship to yourself and those around you. It appears what many people overlook or are perhaps unaware of today is how significant and profound this simple fact of invisible but very real energy vibration is. If you place it front and center in your ongoing awareness, everything suddenly changes. It's like seeing people and the world with a fresh view, more clearly, like putting on a new set of clear glasses that change what you see. The old glasses you got used to wearing were actually dirty, poorly constructed and had resulted in a distorted cloudy view of everything, but you were so used to it you had long ago stopped even noticing it. 

Along the way I’ve built a large reference library of physical books over the past 40+ years, which as Shakespeare once said is my personal "Dukedom large enough". My library is of a type, scope and scale once formed only by old-school, scholarly leaning antiquarian book dealers. Virtually all these books contain useful antiquarian related information not so easily or readily found so concisely and systematically presented. Endless bibliographies, many obscure, many detailed research studies on highly specific topics. In our digitally based modern world, many people (mistakenly) believe they no longer need quality, scholarly, detailed books on specific topics, and ok, that’s fair enough- if you like to believe things which are factually incorrect and walk around completely unaware of what you don’t know, assuming it doesn’t exist. 

All I know and what matters most is I've had a grand time assembling and methodically building and reading it over the decades and it still continues to give me an enormous amount of practical use, as well mental pleasure as I peruse, browse, reread, and bask in it's ongoing glow- as I walk by it, sit within it, handle and look at it as the mood or need arises, and so on. If you have a library of physical books you’ve assembled and read on topics which interest you, you’ll instinctively know precisely what I mean, and if you don’t, you probably won’t. Funny how that works. 
Might be connected to Etheric energy of both people and objects; fun side fact-Dr. Hawkins methodically used kinesiology to confirm the existence of actual measurable energy flows associated with objects, thoughts, people- basically everything. This unique wave-length relationship to the observer is scientifically measurable for objects, thoughts, ideas, historical inquiries, etc. I really don’t know much more than that, but wow.
Oh yes, at first glance ideas like this appear to be way out there, but I have come to believe it's absolutely true and on the right track. Dr. Wayne Dyer believed in it and talked about it. Tons of people have, it’s intuitively known by everyone. It's worth paying attention to what you pay attention to (metacognition) and what you have around you, in all ways and on all levels. Because it probably matters for you, somehow. And objects that uplift and make you feel good inside might mean the item has some type of positive energy it is looking to give you for years to come. Any collector of anything knows exactly what I mean.

My personal library isn't quite at the hard to fathom level of say Umberto Eco's (have you seen the video of him walking through his personal home collection library near the end of his life?! oh wow) or Neil Gaiman's (vast) personal library of graphic novels and books (there's a video of that home tour out there too), etc. But it does fill an entire house apart from the one I live in (which also has lots of books and glass cases full of antique objects in it) and the library is basically comprised of all the rooms full of book cases full of mostly scholarly or specialized, everything still only semi-organized due to endless ongoing growth and storage space shifting evolution. It’s composed of typically well illustrated monographs and bibliographies on all manner of most topics in various languages relating to the history of attractive antiquarian printed paper, including the vast and appealing world of color printing 1850-1980’s, graphics, plate engraving, lithography and mechanical press printing in general over the past 300 years. The comic book and art history (and collection of graphic novels with individual pre-1970 issues) part of my library alone fills many rooms across multiple houses and a further 30' x 10' storage locker devoted entirely to it. There aren’t enough hours in a day. I'm considering making a series of short videos to showcase what it is and how it looks. I probably should start more seriously thinking about selling it all. 

For the historical record, and so my children might some day know if they were ever curious (unlikely), I'll confess that I love what I do and would do it for free if I had to. In fact, when I started I was widely told that is exactly what would happen for me. Thank god I believed in myself and didn't listen to popular wisdom or the opinions of others. Even when they mean well, which most people do, many people simply have no idea what they're talking about. They typically actually know very little, if not literally next to nothing which is original or insightful about the topic they’re discussing. And so any perception or believe they have and share about it (or most other topics) is usually simply entirely subjective, opinion, and thus mostly imaginary. We see what we believe and what we look for, right? Our thoughts and attention shapes our outlook, and what we choose to focus on inevitably eventually expands and manifests as the events and energy vibrations occurring around us, which we in short-hand call our reality. (See my warning at the top of the page. I didn't make this stuff up).

I enjoy seeing all these antique items endlessly coming in and then flowing past me, which regularly means on their way to you. I truly want you to enjoy owning whatever you buy from me! I want you to want it- I will never try to persuade, convince or talk you into buying anything. If you want it, great, but otherwise I’m quite happy owning it, so there's no pressure, rush or worries.

Aside from being just straight up fun, all antiquarian items (of all types) possess a slightly mysterious etheric energy quality which is always unique, special and different from any newly made object. It's like an invisible thumbprint, the feeling it arouses when you look at it.  Most people know this on an instinctual subconscious level when they see an antique item, but might not recognize it consciously.

Everything found here is somehow historically interesting seeing it in person is quite different from seeing a digital image of it on a screen. In person is virtually always better because of this invisible energy field I'm trying to describe with words for objects seen on a glowing digital screen. I am always doing my best to capture every item accurately with the pics and verbal description, the last thing I want to do is hide or try to not reveal something you will see when it arrives. 

Think of this website as a digital historical book and map museum where all the actual antique objects shown are actually for sale and can be yours in the here and now. All it takes is money, which is actually nothing more than a form of stored energy. "Money" is not something that’s actually real, it's just an imaginary socially constructed concept we all agree upon and pretend is real- you know that, right?

Yuval Noah Harrari concisely explains this concept and many others related to it in his recent great book Sapiens. So does Stuart Wilde in his Little Money Bible book (and audiobook!) where he so lovingly and hilariously shares the basic eternal metaphysical laws of money, which is pretty much what we're talking about here. Money begins and ends as a socially constructed concept, and thus it’s really only most useful when it’s being used somehow, traded for something tangible in the real world.

The simple fact that money is, in basic truth, merely stored potential ethereal energy and not anything actual or real (until it's traded for it) is actually wonderful, because it makes everything in life fluid and means that everything is now readily available to you. All you have to do is trade these invisible imaginary digital energy credits (money $signs/ numbers) glowing on your screen for the actual antique physical object you see on that same screen (just a different tab).

Following a simple, quick and easy globally recognized transfer payment and mailing delivery process, the very actual three dimensional antique object you see on your screen can in fact currently easily be yours, for as long as you’d like, and you'll have only traded thin air (your time and energy in the past) for it. Plus, the actual object will always be there for you to gaze upon, touch, handle, admire, inspect, research, give away, resell and maybe some day make a profit from owning, etc. What could be better or more here and now than that? And just ask Eckhart Tolle to better explain that one if you don't get it, although chances are somewhere deep inside you instinctively instantly do.

Before you go, let's briefly direct our attention fully to the present moment, the actual here and now that everyone keeps talking on and on about. The moment we all somehow keep missing by placing our attention mostly somewhere else while we're in the midst of it.

If you think it's easy keeping yourself focused in the present moment, try closing you eyes and counting your breathes up to 10, without letting your mind wander. Just keep it focused on the empty space of the 10 as they slowly pass by. Most people can't do it, or even get close to 10.  The mind often wanders off after about 4 or 5 seconds of focus.

Concentration is an actual mental skill you have to develop, over time, with conscious practice. Try it some time. It's a fun self-challenge that quickly shows you how utterly untrained your mind actually is. It's known as monkey mind. I mean, if you can't even concentrate on one simple thing long enough to get to 10, what does that say about your mind and it's ability to think, contemplate and help thoughts and ideas arise?

This is where physical books and reading come in. Reading a book is a different brain wave activity than digital glow screen reading. One helps the mind to develop, the other does who even knows what after long term exposure. Our current world might however clearly be showing us what short-term but lengthy daily exposure does.  You quickly wind up with dinosaurs wearing riding saddles and people wanting to colonize Mars. We've quickly reached a societal inflection point where one is now constantly asking out loud on a daily basis- "Seriously?! How can we even be saying things like that in 2025?"

Alright, then. You've almost made it to the end!

So let’s now take three, slow, deep full breaths in, just briefly holding each one and then allowing each of them to flow out naturally, without pushing, effort or resistance anywhere in the entire process. 

Let's now do 3 more similar breathes, but let’s close our eyes for these and stare into the semi-dark, shimmering endless space between our shut eyes, looking slightly upward towards the middle of our forehead, and for these next 3 breathes simply observe the incredible glowing lights movement of etheric body energy, the endlessly shifting floating patterns and plays of light, darkness and energy that fills our awareness as we focus on it.

It's amazing what we can see when we stop, and simply pay conscious attention to our own bodies energy. You might even be tempted to do this exercise for longer than 6 breathes because it feels so pleasant and refreshing. The brain must be releasing special wellness and healing chemicals with this exercise. The brain can do things like that, so it's worth helping it. (Dr. Joe Dispenza- You are the Placebo).

Personally, I use this simple 1 minute centering exercise repeatedly throughout my day (whenever I think of it and/ or whenever I feel any mental or physical stress beginning to arise, which seems directly correlated to being online) and it can instantly shift me and leave me feeling more centered and balanced. It must have something to do with the chemicals the brain releases in these different activities.

In closing, allow me to share with you a simple method for inserting a quick little personal reset break exercise like this into some daily life, say, near emergency situation- like when you suddenly feel like your head is about to explode because of something someone just said or believes- or wherever else you might find a burning need or desire arise, etc. 
You just say to whomever you're with "Would you please excuse me for just one minute while I sit down here, close my eyes and use a small mental trick I know that allows me to reset and refresh myself? I’m hopefully going to quickly restore my natural sense of etheric balance and positive energy flow, so thank you very much for your patience! I'll be right back with you in a quick snap".  You then sit down, count to 6 (or 8) as described, and presto, you're back feeling refreshed and like new.

OK, enough for now about books, reading, thinking, cognition, etheric energy and the meaning of life. If you've gotten this far you hopefully now realize you have no one to blame but yourself, which is actually a great place to begin again from.

Peace, namaste and with my kind regards,

Brian DiMambro, Antiquarian Dealer & Collector.
Dover, New Hampshire, USA.
March, 2025

view from my desk, typical of how it all looks at the moment, although it does keep changing: