[Bell Historians] Church bells of Cornwall

[Richard Smith]

On Thu 7 Aug 2025 22:03, Oliver Lee via Bell-historians wrote:

> would anyone know where I can find copy of church bells of Cornwall 
> ( canon 1977)?, I have had a lot of problems trying to find this book 

It took me a long, long time to find a copy of Cannon's Church Bells of 
Cornwall.  (I think it was published 1979 not 1977, though I'm not at 
home at the moment and perhaps I miscatalogued it.)  In the end I found 
a copy for sale on line from a second-hand book seller in Norwich.  It 
wasn't cheap, but with books as obscure as this, it's very much a 
seller's market and you never know how long it'll be until another copy 
comes on the market.

> in the past and neither Abebooks or eBay are helpful ( unless of course 
> you are looking for copies of HB Walter's church bells of England or a 
> couple of old central council leaflets!).

Don't be too quick to dismiss AbeBooks.  I've bought a lot of ringing 
books on that site over the years, and have generally been happy with 
it.  Yes, you occasionally find books at ridiculous prices (e.g. the 
copy of Clavis Campanalogia that's been listed at £1200 for years), but 
on the whole, the prices are reasonable and the quality as described, 
and you can sometimes get a real bargain.  Just watch out for the modern 
reprints.

Make sure you try both AbeBooks.co.uk and the US version, AbeBooks.com. 
They don't always list the same things, and most US sellers will ship to 
the UK.  At the moment, for example, the US site lists a copy of 
Dunkin's Church Bells of Cornwall (1878) that's not on the UK site. 
(It's listed at $533 – a little under £400 – which seems good value as 
this is one of the rarest of the Victorian-era county histories.)

Otherwise, try auction sites (proper ones like the-saleroom.com – not 
eBay, though that can be useful too) and charity bookshops (Oxfam's 
online store is good).  Very occasionally you can find something useful 
on Amazon.  Learn how to save searches or configure alerts on these 
sits.  Regularly do internet searches for titles you need: you can 
sometimes find copies in obscure shops that don't list on the likes of 
AbeBooks.

If you're aiming to build up a good library of books on the history of 
bells and ringing, don't expect it to be quick or easy or cheap, and 
certainly not all three.

Richard