About Us

Read’Em Again Books is actually just me and my wife. My name is Kurt Sanftleben, and my wife's name is Gail.

We first started buying and selling collectible books and paper Americana in 1992 as a hobby.  At the time I was on active duty, serving as an Army officer at the joint command located in Norfolk, Virginia, and Gail was working as a Navy civilian at the regional Healthcare Support Office.  After I retired from the military, we moved to Northern Virginia when I accepted a dual-hatted civilian position as the Director of the Marine Corps Research Center and a Vice President at the Marine Corps University and Gail became the Deputy Director for DoD/VA partnerships at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.  Although we are both now completely retired from our day jobs and live in Virginia Beach--we are still selling paper Americana part-time.  If you're interested in learning more about our background, please visit our "Staff" page.  

After we jumped on the eBay bandwagon in 1999, our sales increased considerably, and we decided to open an on-line store and start selling at regional book fairs and antique shows. Today, most of our business comes from catalog sales, but we set up across the country at six to eight physical book fairs and stamp shows each year.  And, over the past couple of years we've annually exhibited at four or five virtual book fairs as well.

Our memberships in professional trade organizations include the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the Independent On-Line Booksellers Association (IOBA), the Manuscript Society, the Ephemera Society of America, the American Philatelic Society (APS), the American Stamp Dealers Association (ASDA), the Military Postal History Society, and the U. S. Philatelic Classics Society.

We often get asked if Read’Em Again Books has a "specialty."  Not really, at least in the traditional sense. We buy and sell things we like. Generally that includes most paper Americana (especially unique items--such as diaries, journals, correspondence collections, photograph albums, etc.--that tell a interesting personal narrative) and U. S. postal history. We also often have  trade cards, postcards, stereoviews, billheads, advertising covers, maps, prints, and other assorted ephemera available for sale.  Occassionaly, we buy and sell other collectibles that strike our fancy--primarily antique children's toys and games, breweriana, and tobacciana.

Although we welcome telephone calls, you’ll probably get a response to any query much faster by sending an email message to kurt@sanftleben.com.