Collectors Treasury

People who told us or who still say that Johannesburg is a boring city must have not stepped out of their houses very much while they lived here. Every day we find something that amazes us how vibrant and interesting this city is.

To quote a new friend we made over this weekend – I love it here. I fall in love with the city more and more each day.

This week, we found our way to Collectors Treasury. I had read that it is the largest bookstore in the Southern Hemisphere and has like 2 million books. Someone also told me that they stocked books as old as a hundred years old.

Collectors Treasury is located in a not so posh area of the city. It’s close to Arts on Main and Market on Main, two of my favourite places in Johannesburg.

Enter the building and we were greeted by a long narrow staircase that have books stacked at the sides along each step. We knew instantly we were at the right place.

Once we entered the store, the only words that came out of our mouths were Wow. Wow! and WOW!

There were thousands and thousands of books in every corner. It was freaking overwhelming. I didn’t even know where to start looking at.

There were books in all categories that you can think of. Fiction. Non-fiction. History. Art. Travel. Languages. Hobbies. Architecture. Literature. And so so so much more. I even spotted Polar Exploration. If you are an aspiring Tin Tin, you would love this section.

The place was filled with old books. VERY old books. I loved touching those old bounded books. Look at this. The South and East African Year Book for 1931!

Look at the old pages and the kind of advertisements back then.

If you love reading about history, this is truly the perfect place to start looking for it.

All the books are marked on the first page. If you’re lucky, you’ll see the date of publication. And then there’s the price.

No one would bother you. You can just grab a corner or a chair and sit there all day and browse. It’s wonderful. Nice and quiet.

Until I spotted the local resident spider. I must have been hogging his space.

Wandering into the little nooks and corners of the store, I stumbled into a precious chamber. It’s where all the really OLD books are. Leather bounded and smelling of oak and paper and musk, this place felt sacred.

And then I spotted these. An entire collection of Shakespeare’s work. I was so excited, I was trembling. It took me a while to get a steady shot of them.

It didn’t say in the books but I’m guessing these could be 80 to 100 years old. They were R2500 (~SGD410) each.

It’s not just old books that you can find in Collectors Treasury. There were tons of knick knacks. We saw hundreds and hundreds of vinyl records. I recognised albums like Eagles and Simon & Garfunkel. This is a wonderful place to stock some records if you still have one of those old machines that play them.

There were tons of ornaments, fine china, jewellery, art, paintings.. very vintage.. some with loads of history.

I found a section where they had a set of vintage golf clubs. Hmmm.. maybe a birthday present for the hubby? Haha!

And a collection of old cameras. Woohoo!

I had a blast checking them out. I didn’t have an interest in photography when I was younger so playing around with manual lenses and cameras was pretty cool. They didn’t really work, of course.

On our way out, I spotted a copy of the now defunct local fashion/porn magazine, SCOPE. It was printed in the year I was born in.

So flipping through it, I discovered a few things about the year I was born in.

Raquel Welch and Brigette Bardot were the hottest young things.

They were encouraging women to cook Chicken A La King.

Nivea Cream was already huge back then.

And big hair and khaki shorts were the fashion raves. Hahaha!

This is a place to immerse in history. I loved the surprises we had at every corner of the store. We could have stayed here for hours if we didn’t have a lunch party to go to. Definitely a great place to visit in Joburg.

Collectors Treasury is located at 244 Commissioner Street, Johannesburg. It opens Mon-Fri 9am to 5pm and Sat 10am to 1pm. Closed on Sundays.