Rare book collection entices country couple

‘‘Both of us have been very, very heavy readers since we were children,” Pat Ahearn, 70, said. ‘‘... It’s wonderful to be able to do something you love.”

Though many of its sales are sparked by the Internet, catalogs and the occasional book fair, Quill & Brush also allows bookworms to make an appointment to visit the library. The Ahearns, who are approaching their 50th wedding anniversary, also conduct appraisals using book-collecting guides that they penned. Two of their daughters and three part-time employees also help out, according to the store’s Web site.

‘‘It’s a minutiae business,” Allen Ahearn, 70, said. ‘‘You can always find something to do.”

The Ahearns first got into collecting and cataloging books in the early 1960s, and they turned the hobby into a career by opening Quill & Brush in Olney in 1976, Allen said. The store moved to Bethesda a year later and relocated yet again after 10 years to the couple’s then-home in Rockville, Pat said.

The Ahearns — and their library — moved to their current home at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain in 1998, Allen said.

About five years after opening the store, Allen left his 20-year government career to focus on the growing business, Pat said. The store was a return to the working world for Pat, who had had her hands full raising the couple’s four children as a stay-at-home mom, she said.

The choice of business was a compromise, Pat said. She wanted to open a gallery and her husband wanted to showcase his book collection. Though they have more books than paintings, they do sell art, such as pieces by playwright Edward Albee and poet E.E. Cummings.

The store’s book collection includes such genres as science fiction, mystery, literature, poetry, biography and works by local writers. The books date from Charles Dickens’ era to the present, Allen said.

‘‘Any book you’ve ever heard of is probably collected,” he said.

It’s not just the classic masters who bring in the big bucks. First editions of John Grisham’s first novel, ‘‘A Time to Kill,” published in 1989, can be worth $4,000 to $5,000, depending on the condition, Allen said. First editions of ‘‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first in J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard series that had its initial U.S. printing 1998, can fetch $20,000 to $30,000, he said.

Of course, there’s always the one that got away. Quill & Brush’s white whale was a first edition of Herman Melville’s ‘‘Moby Dick,” then titled ‘‘The Whale,” Pat said. Someone offered to sell them the title for $900 when they first began collecting, but they couldn’t afford it without taking out a loan, she said. Now it sells for $100,000, she said.

The couple’s private collection of 400 to 500 books is comprised of books personally signed for the couple, Allen said.

After more than 30 years catering to literary connoisseurs, the Ahearns have no plans to shelve their business anytime soon.

‘‘Unless your mind goes, it’s something you can always do,” Pat said with a laugh.

Quill & Brush

1137 Sugarloaf Mountain Road, Dickerson

www.qbbooks.com or301-874-3200