Our Buying Policy

Liturgical Books particularly Alcuin Club, old Missals (Anglican or Catholic).

Biblical Studies. Academic monographs, scholarly commentaries.

Theology. Good academic authors past and present.

Canon Law particularly medieval.

Patristics - studies on the first five centuries of the Church - Anything, especially in Greek, Latin, English or German. Sets of Migne's Patrologia are always welcome. We specialise in the archaeology of the Early Church.

Medieval Studies - Anything scholarly.

Church History since 1500 Reformation, religious orders, Oxford Movement, missions, Old Catholics.

Spirituality All the classic writers from John Cassian to the present.

Orthodoxy All areas of Eastern Christianity, including Coptic, Ethiopian and Indian.

Books we buy are generally clean (no underlining!) and in good sound bindings, though sometimes if a title is rare the condition doesn't matter as much.

In this day and age the most sensible way to show me what books you have is just to take a series of photos of the books as they sit on the bookshelves and email them to me. Items that look interesting but are too narrow to see end on can be laid out in a group and photographed from the front.

Failing photos you can phone or email us anyway. We don't usually need to see a full list of the books (see next paragraph), but if you have one already that can be useful. It is helpful to know about the owner - their clerical and academic achievements, churchmanship, interests and age. This can give me an instant idea of not only what their collection is like generally, but even which titles I am likely to find on their shelves. Academic and monastic libraries (as long as the latter don't consist entirely of books on how to be a good nun) are welcome.

If you phone I will want to ask you about the books, so if you can work out the strengths and emphases of the collection and tell me, that will be helpful. You should also have a representative selection of what you consider the best books to hand so you can read out their details to me. It doesn't have to be many - a dozen at the most.

If you do want to produce a list please read the following notes as a badly produced list is worse than useless. Books may be listed in any order - there is no need to group subjects. The author's surname should come first, followed by his initials, then the title of the book. We need to know the date and edition of the book. The binding (hardback, paperback, leather, limp etc) should be recorded. Books published since the early 1970s will almost always have an ISBN (back of the dustjacket on recent publications, failing that on the back of the title page). If you want us to take your list seriously please give the ISBN. Just print the whole 10 or 13 digit number without any spaces or dashes. (It goes without saying that I don't accept handwritten lists.)

Please don't do what one recent seller did. He produced a long list of just authors and ISBNs. It was virtually impossible to wade through, and many of the ISBNs were copied wrongly so there was no way of working out what the book was. It wasted hours.

Condition If the book is fairly new and obviously clean and sound then no mention of the condition needs to be made. But where this is not the case the following questions need to be answered: are the hinges sound; is the spine at all frayed at top, bottom or sides; is there any marking by pencil, pen or other anywhere; are the covers clean and uncreased; are any pages loose? Should there be a dustjacket, and if so is it whole or frayed, or torn or crumpled or missing altogether? Does the book look bright and clean, or is it at all rubbed or shabby? Please mention any other faults or plusses you think I would like to know about.

In theory we travel anywhere on the mainland of Britain to buy books. In practice this means that the further away from Cambridge, the better and bigger the collection has to be. But this is tempered by the fact that if you live somewhere romantic or beautiful I like the excuse to take a day off to come and see the countryside.

Having looked at a collection of books and decided I want them, I can often make an immediate offer. But sometimes I need to do some research before I can work out a price that is fair to both you and me. In these cases I need you to leave the books with me a few days.

An alternative way of arranging the sale is for me to take the books, sell them, and share the proceeds with you 50/50. The advantage of doing it this way is that in the end you will usually make more money than you would have if I paid you up front. Also, I am more prepared to take the slightly doubtful books and try and sell them if I don't have to commit money in advance. The main disadvantage for the seller is that the money comes in over a period of time, rather than as a lump sum. This arrangement is one I have used many times in the past, especially with collections that are large and hard to precisely value without extensive research, to great satisfaction on the part of the sellers. If you would like to know more about the details of such an agreement I will be happy to discuss it with you.

Philip Lund B.A.(Rhodes) B.D.(Hons)(London), DipTh.
Lund Theological Books
1 Arbury Road
CAMBRIDGE
CB4 2JB

Vat Reg No. GB 386 0602 50

Phone (24hr) 01223 565 303

e-mail: philip@lundbooks.co.uk