Each year, I buy myself something just after the holiday. After all,
we know what to treat ourselves to, right?

I've been eying the huge volumes of illustrations from the old
cabinets of curiosities -- usually engravings done in the 17th and
18th centuries. I think there are 3 books of cabinet illustrations on
the market now. They are very expensive -- up to $100 each -- due to
their many large format and every page printed in color.

I had a discount coupon at a bookstore nearby, and yesterday, I
decided to use it. When I walked into the store, I immediately spotted
one of those expensive volumes -- on sale for $55. My coupon brought
that price down by $13 more, and the book begged me to take it home.
It contains the collection of color plates from the curiosity cabinet
of Albertus Seba (Dutch) that were made from 1734 - 1765. It has 543
10" x 15" pages and probably weighs about 12 pounds or so.

Since my set of Cabinet of Curiosities letterboxes is sort of a master
project or "letterboxing thesis", the book will be a great resource.
Seba's Cabinet, however, was limited to natural history (including
freaks & monsters), whereas my collection can also include cultural,
historical, religious, and artistic artifacts as well -- like many
other cabinets from the past.

The early cabinets were an attempt to build a diverse collection of
objects, that when seen together, represented the world in a
microcosm. Objects were arranged so that viewers might see connections
between them and learn about the cosmos.