COLLECTING LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS … STRIKING GOLD!

My Little Golden Book collection is the oldest and most loved of all of my many collections.  Little Golden Books (LGBs) were first introduced in 1942.  Prior to this time, most children’s books were not of a “kid friendly” type.  Since my mother had been an elementary school teacher before I was born and I was a child of the early 1940s, we were the perfect audience for the new easily available books.  Through my childhood years, my sister, brother, and I had a nice collection of Golden Books, but when we outgrew them my mother passed them onto our younger cousin and only a few worn out books remained. 

I still have fond memories of some of the early books … Mother Goose, The Little Red Hen, Three Little Kittens, and Fairy Tales … but my favorites were Noises and Mr. Flibberty Jib,  Fix It Please, Playing House, and The New Baby, all of which were illustrated by Eloise Wilkin.  When I had my own three daughters, I began to buy all the new titles and reprints of the old titles.   Many new titles illustrated by Eloise Wilkin were published during these years, and I bought them all.  They grew up loving  LGBs as much as I had.  Then in 1992, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of LGBs, Golden Press brought out a facsimile boxed set of the first 12 books published.  Of course, I had to have a set even though my own daughters were too old by then for LGBs. 

It was about this time that I first began to go to antique shows and shops looking for a few missing pieces of my mother’s silverware.  On my first trip to the Scott Antique Show in Atlanta, I found a booth of all kinds of collectible children’s books including LGBs.  Browsing through the stash, I found and bought several books that I remembered. I decided that the one book that I really would like to find was The New Baby that had been read to me so many times before the birth of my brother, who was born when I was about six.  I was on a mission, checking out stacks of the older books every time I went antiquing.  Even though I wasn’t lucky enough to find The New Baby right away, I would usually find another old book that I remembered, and my collection started to grow and grow.  It took me about seven years before I was able to find the “piece de resistance.”  That was more than 25 years ago, and now I have a huge wonderful collection of books.  My daughters have enjoyed them as well as my grandchildren. 

Along the way, I discovered there is a lot to know about collecting these books.  Since I decided I only wanted to collect books from the 1940s and 1950s, I started to do research about how to know which ones to collect.  I bought Tomart’s Price Guide to Golden Book Collectibles (it was in this book that I was inspired by the phrase “striking gold”). Later I added the third and fifth editions of Collecting Little Golden Books by Steve Santi.  These books are just filled with the history and development of the books.  They also have complete lists and photos of all of the books in chronological order.  I began to read, learn, and check off the books I had collected and make a list of those that I wanted to collect. In the beginning, I took the reference books with me and left them in the car.  If I found some books that I wasn’t sure about, I could go out and look them up in the guides.  After a while, if you collect a lot of anything you need a list.  For collectibles other than LGBs, I keep a small spiral notebook of lists in my purse.   Now I keep my lists on my Pinterest as well,  including my wish list.   Even though I don’t “need” to add to most of my collections, there are a few things I would still like.  Pinterest wish lists allow my daughters to be able to use their iPhones to check the lists any time‼