A big bet on vintage volumes

Until recently, Mandalay Bay’s eclectic Reading Room -- an imitation of an independent book shop owned by a casino company -- was the only full-fledged bookstore in a Las Vegas Strip resort. Though the casino has announced the Reading Room will be closing at an unspecified date, there’s a new alternative for book lovers, albeit a far more expensive one: Bauman Rare Books at the Palazzo.

Here, collectors can find a $375 paperback of Ian Fleming’s “Octopussy,” one of the store’s low-priced offerings, for pool reading. Or if you hit on roulette, for $250,000, you can purchase a first edition of the account of Lewis & Clark’s expedition.

Bauman Rare Books sticks out like either a guiding light or a sore thumb amid the Palazzo’s retail shops, with their designer handbags and dresses. On the Strip, even chain stores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble have not found placing an outlet in a resort mall worth doing. After all, people don’t generally come here to read books, nor is Vegas known for its book collectors.

The Philadelphia-based store hopes to change that by catering as much to the first-time collector as the connoisseur. People who wander in on vacation very well may get caught up looking at a display of an early draft of the Constitution or old medical texts. As with any Vegas outlet, Bauman has learned to display some wow factor.

Still, the store’s interior has a conservative, plush decor that suggests timelessness outside the gaudy flash of a casino; think a 19th century adventurer’s club in England. The unmistakable smell of bound old books permeates the air. And though they admit some people are surprised to come upon them, the Bauman managers who relocated from New York for the store -- Justin McShea and Laura Minor -- say that business has been great. It is the company’s third retail outlet, including the original Philly location and a New York expansion now almost 20 years old.

The move west was long in contemplation. “A number of our customers live in the Pacific Northwest and California, and Las Vegas has become a hub for them,” says McShea, who has been with the company since 2000. “And the people at the Palazzo wanted something different in their retail mix, and we are that. So it has worked out well.”

Beyond having a sympathetic landlord, the resort mall location at the Palazzo allows Bauman to benefit from foot traffic unlike that at either of their other outlets.

“We are averaging 2,500-3,000 people a week who are coming into the gallery,” says Minor, a Bauman’s employee since 1991.

“I think on a slow day we see 200 people through the door,” McShea says.

So the store does try to emphasize that regular people can afford to collect books and has a few are priced barely above $100. Fittingly enough, the store also keeps a signed first edition of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” in stock.

And Bauman has benefited from another sort of customer it never sees in New York: the Vegas winner.

“The first week we opened we had a gentleman come in and look around and think it was wonderful,” Minor recalls. “He then went downstairs and won $1,600 and came right back and said, ‘What can I do with this? I want to do something important before I lose it.’ ” She sold him a copy of “Thunderball.” (Fleming is always popular.)

In a land of the passing fad, Bauman hopes the timeless appeal of books can find a home.

“What we sell are things that are solid and that are always going to be important,” Minor says. “Shakespeare is never going to devalue.”

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