the.com/antiquarian
Someone who loves old things so much they'll correct your pronunciation of 'incunabula.'
means A person who studies, collects, or deals in old and rare things — books, coins, manuscripts, artifacts — often with scholarly devotion rather than mere nostalgia.
from Traces back to Latin 'antiquarius,' meaning 'pertaining to antiquity,' itself rooted in 'antiquus' (old, former, ancient) — a cousin of 'ante,' meaning 'before.' The word entered English in the 1500s-1600s describing those who studied ancient relics and documents, at a time when 'antiquarian' and 'historian' were still sorting out their job descriptions. The fussier, more pedantic connotation grew over the centuries as antiquarians became associated with obsessive cataloguing and hairsplitting over provenance.
- not antique dealer
- studies and collects, doesn't just sell
- book specialty
- often means rare-book collector specifically
- etymology
- from antiquarius, one devoted to ancient things
- peak obsession
- can date paper by its watermark alone