Book cover: "Safe Bind, Safe Find" by Garry Hogg

• Title: Safe Bind, Safe Find
• Subtitle: The Story of Locks, Bolts and Bars
• Author: Garry Hogg
• Publisher: Criterion Books, New York
• Year: 1968 ("First U.S.A. Edition')
• Pages: 158
• Cover price: $3.50
• 
  Notes: Author Hogg (1902-1976), pictured at right in his dust-jacket photo from this book, had quite the life and writing career. His other volumes include Orient Express: The Birth, Life, and Death of a Great Train, Portuguese Journey, Norwegian Journey, The Granite Men, The Hovercraft Story, The Shell Book of Exploring Britain, A Guide to English Country Houses, Inns and Villages of England, and — because why not? — Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice. ... As of the blurb on this 1968 dust jacket, he had authored 45 books, and he is described as having "unusual skill in making factual material as exciting as fiction." That's probably a good skill to have when you're writing about the history of locks, bolts and bars. The book documents not just the creators of various locking devices over the centuries, but the lock-pickers and robbers who tried to penetrate them. ... We previously had this book at our antique store vendor space in Dover, priced at $8 (probably $3-4 too high). When we shut down last year and donated many of the books to the Book Nook Bonanza (one of the best used-book sales in Pennsylvania), I couldn't part with this one. Because you just never know when you're going to want to read a history of locks and bolts. ... Finally, this was formerly a library book, and when the Greenfield School Library decided to remove this book from its collection, it used this stamp on the last page:
  
  
  
  
  "Weeded" is such a harsh word to use with regard to books, wouldn't you agree?