There are few things that I ever attempt doing that I do it in moderation.

Several years ago a guy was passing through with an old bookcase in the back of his van. He camped out for a while at Cec’s Fishing Camp at Smithwick. The story was that he was short on funds and needed to sell this family heirloom so he could travel farther west. It was full of old books. Mostly classics. Like nice sets of the classics.

I found a note inside that told that it was a wedding present to a couple, supposedly the sellers grandparents. I was dated in the 30s. I believe they were from Georgia.

Inside was something else interesting, that I had never seen before. They were tiny leather bound books. They are call The Little Leather Library. They all had dark green covers. A lot of Shakespeare and other of Classic books. Also books of poems.

After I got on the internet and started getting up to speed on things I did research and found that these books were given in boxes of detergent and other products. That started around 1915 and went up into the Great Depression.

eBay was the newest thing so I started seeing them for sale. I found out that different companies that gave them away had different colored covers. Some red, a few blue but mostly the dark green ones.

I started collecting them. I ended up with box after box of them. I would try to get complete sets of books in all the colors.

The most unique are sets of books of the bible. They have brown covers. I was able to buy 3 complete sets of those.

One day it occurred to me that I didn’t need to keep buying them. I haven’t bought in years. But I’ve got no telling how many acid free / chemical free boxes filled with them if I ever decide I need to read a bunch of micro-sized books. Only problem, I need large print everything now to read anything.

BTW: Please don’t break into my house to steal a valuable book collection. This sure ain’t it.

For More Info – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Leather_Library_Corporation