It may be hard times for the written word, but one local business is finding a good book never goes out of fashion. Our Tamara Lindstrom has more on the antique auction house.

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ITHACA, N.Y. -- For David Hall, it's easy to see why collectors are passionate about his wares.

"The amount of experience that's packed into an inch and a half of leaves of paper is pretty staggering."

It's an experience that some are willing to bid thousands on. Hall started National Book Auctions in Ithaca to help sort through the countless manuscripts cluttering attics or forgotten on shelves. Hall and his team travel the county and even the world in search of books. And like any good adventure, sometimes he finds a buried treasure.

"It happened three times that I bought books that ended up being worth over ten thousand dollars each and I paid less than fifty dollars for any of those books," Hall said.

And sometimes there's more than numbered pages behind the cover.

"One of my staff was handling it and prepared to price it for a couple of dollars in our online database," Hall said. "And I heard this little squeal from across the room. And about four pages from the back of the book, she found a letter from Albert Einstein, with his original signature right on it."

But Hall said the surprise finds show just how much people need advocates when it comes to selling their books.

"Even if you've been working with general antiques for decades, if you walk into a room with two thousand books, you probably have to look up half of them to know what you're dealing with."

So the auction house works on consignment to get book sellers the best deal, and bring book lovers a tangible bit of history.

"It's difficult to own a fifteenth century piece of porcelain," Hall said. "It's not that difficult to own a fifteenth century book."

To some, a piece of art that's worth its weight in gold.

The next book auction is coming up this weekend. For more on the event, or on buying and selling books, visit nationalbookauctions.com.