BOOK AND QUILL

Like a plain book, this one runs as a selling trade: a Librarian pays you emeralds for a book and quill rather than handing one out. What sets it apart is where it sits on his table. A plain book buys back at a relatively low tier, while book and quill waits all the way until expert, his top rung, before he is willing to take one off your hands.

The item itself is not expensive to make: 1 book, 1 ink sac, 1 feather. The late placement is about the villager's trade tier, not the difficulty of the recipe.

One buyer. A Librarian reaching expert, the top of five tiers, pays 2 emeralds for 1 book and quill, a rate fixed in the trade file rather than something a villager rolls.

Getting a Librarian this deep into his own trade ladder already means a fair amount of prior trading, so this offer tends to show up on villagers you have already invested in rather than a fresh recruit.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 2 book and quills, from the Librarian, and nothing else on the list pays out faster. No villager sells book and quill back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Librarian takes 2 book and quills a trade, 12 trades, 12 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

12 acacia boats against 360 flint for the same 12 emeralds, 30 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Butcher at 7.5 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Book and Quill itself pays 2 an emerald, so 10 of the 72 ask less and 60 ask more.

Expert is the top of the Librarian's five tiers, needing 150 banked trading experience, the largest threshold on his whole ladder, before this offer opens up.

12 sales close the slot, then a restock brings the same offer back rather than swapping in a different one.

12 sales close the row, needing 2 real minutes idle before it restocks, comfortably inside the 20-minute villager day.

Camp for both refills and one Librarian takes 24 book and quill off your hands across a single Minecraft day, assuming you keep that many spare copies coming.

This offer only shows up on a Librarian who has already climbed to expert, so it is worth checking villagers you have already leveled up for other reasons rather than a brand new recruit.

Also on the Librarian's list: clock, compass, yellow candle, red candle, paper, and bookshelf.

A book and quill is a book, an ink sac and a feather, and it exists so a player can write. Signed, it becomes a written book that cannot be edited and can be copied, which is how servers hand out rules and how players leave notes in chests.

It is not an enchantment book and it never becomes one. That confusion is the reason the two show up on the same page: a Librarian sells the enchanted kind and buys the paper the plain kind is made of.

A signed book placed on a lectern can be read by anybody without being taken, and a lectern is also a librarian's workstation, which means the same block runs a library and a shop.

Copying a signed book on a crafting grid makes a copy of a copy, and the game tracks how far from the original each one is. A copy of a copy cannot be copied again.

A lectern with a book on it also emits a redstone signal that changes with the page you are on, which is the quietest way to build a combination lock in the game.