Robert Cronje

Robert (Rob) Cronjé is co-owner of Midlands Books & Collectables, based at The Old Mushroom Farm in Howick, KZN Midlands. He runs the shop alongside co-owner Adam Riley. Walk in on a weekday and you'll usually find one of them behind the counter with a coin, a rare book or a customer's collection spread out in front of them.

Rob's path into the trade started with coins. He met Adam through the Pietermaritzburg Numismatic Society in 2017, and by 2018 was dealing in coins and collectables as a side hustle alongside a twenty-year corporate career at Bidvest Prestige. In 2021 he expanded into books. In early 2023 Adam suggested they open a physical shop, and Midlands Books opened its doors on 1 May 2023. By July, after taking voluntary retrenchment from corporate life, Rob was full-time in the shop. What had started as a passion had become a life.

Rob's biggest love in the trade is numismatics, coins and the history behind them. He's a member of the Pietermaritzburg Numismatic Society and the SA Coin Collectors Club, and a regular contributor to Numista, the leading global numismatic catalogue. Midlands Books is currently in the process of joining the Independent Online Booksellers Association.

On the book side, Rob has a soft spot for Rhodesiana and books on the Holocaust, and he's constantly learning across the wider catalogue as new finds come through the door.

Some of the highlights that have passed through his hands include a signed Muhammad Ali, an 1872 first edition of Through the Looking Glass, a 1906 first edition Peter Pan, a late-19th-century MacFarlane's castings set, and a 1936 Berlin Olympics pin. He and Adam once drove to Pretoria and came home with roughly a tonne and a half of remarkable books. It's the kind of trip Rob still talks about.

Outside the shop, Rob is married with four children. He collects South African petrol coupons alongside coins. The one book he'd never part with is Birds of South Africa, inscribed to him by Adam at its 2022 launch with a promise to convert Rob to birding, which finally happened in September 2023.

His approach to the trade, in one line: "Be fair, be honest, and the treasure will find you."