{"id":480158,"date":"2025-10-07T10:18:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T10:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/480158\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T10:18:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T10:18:18","slug":"fascinating-rare-books-collectibles-spotted-at-rare-books-l-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/480158\/","title":{"rendered":"Fascinating rare books, collectibles spotted at Rare Books L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix&#8221;&gt;             <img class=\"image\" alt=\"A yellowed copy of a Los Angeles phonebook from 1882 sits on glass.\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759832298_246_\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>         <\/p>\n<p>This 1882 L.A. phonebook includes just 90 names. <\/p>\n<p>(William Liang \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<p>On April 3, 1882, the city permitted the Los Angeles Telephone Co. to string lines within city limits. A week later, L.A. printed its first phone book. Most early directories were tossed once a new one arrived, but <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.peterharrington.co.uk\/los-angeles-telephone-book-141446.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Peter Harrington Rare Books<\/a> has a rare surviving copy, titled \u201cLos Angeles Telephone Book (1882),\u201d priced around $13,000.<\/p>\n<p>The single, folded sheet lists just 90 names, mostly businesses near historic downtown such as liveries, saloons, physicians, mills, druggists and the local undertaker. Included are instructions for calling the central office, along with one- and two-digit numbers for USC\u2019s first president, M.M. Bovard (dial \u201c58\u201d), and the Los Angeles Club (dial \u201c38\u201d). Seen at auction only twice in modern records, the directory is a rare piece of early Californiana \u2014 as much a record of the city\u2019s earliest telecommunications as a social snapshot of fin de si\u00e8cle Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix&#8221;&gt; This 1882 L.A. phonebook includes just 90 names. (William Liang \/ For The Times) On April&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[159358,7007,3444,557,2737,56948,159357,53264,159356,77,17272,34470,159360,12867,115494,16,15,159359,3118],"class_list":{"0":"post-480158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-adventures","9":"tag-alice","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-collector","14":"tag-dr-frankenstein","15":"tag-edition","16":"tag-edward-abbey","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-letter","19":"tag-los-angeles-times","20":"tag-monkey-wrench-gang","21":"tag-novel","22":"tag-salvador-dali","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-wonderland","26":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115332376706946009","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}