I was excited about reading “Rare Books Uncovered — True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places” by Rebecca Rego Barry. I was hoping to live vicariously through some of these stories and possibly learn a few tricks of the book trade.
The book consists of 52 short chapters. Most of them are only a few pages long. These stories have been recounted by professional book hunters, book scouts and book dealers. It should be noted that this book’s title is somewhat misleading because a number of the stories involve unique non-book items such as documents, comics and sheet music.
The unifying thread that binds many of these stories together is a predictable one; valuable objects are being obtained from people who are not aware of their real worth. Astute merchants are then able to locate buyers who will pay top dollar for these rarities.
There’s something distasteful about some of these stories. While one can certainly understand the desire to profit from the ignorance of others there’s an unsavory, greedy flavor that left this reviewer uneasy and queasy. Maintaining a sense of ethics can be a challenge.
Here is an example of what I’m talking about. A bookseller goes to a sale being held by a local public library: “he set to work sifting through a box of 1920’s sheet music, none of which was worth much, but since everything was priced at 25 cents, he continued skimming until he found something.” It was a composition by Felix Mendelssohn.
It was “significant, rare, even unique in its markings, this library sale find was snapped up by a private collector to the tune of $10,000.” Apparently this book dealer did feel some slight guilty twinge about his easy profit. Now “he has even volunteered to assist local library boards in evaluating their donations before setting them out for sale.”
Fortunately there are also some amazing discoveries being made that don’t bear that taint of greed. A man finds wooden barrels filled with books that once belonged to Mark Twain. Twain had written witty comments along the margins.
A man’s great aunt has died. He’s clearing out the house. His great uncle’s comic books, 345 of them in pristine condition, are in a closet. The uncle died 17 years ago. At auction the comics bring $3.5 million.
A book dealer’s relative asks him to appraise the family Bible. He is stunned to find that it is a magnificent text worth $350,000. Family Bibles are rarely of such value.
Professional book hunters have their own vocabulary. The author highlights and defines some of this language. It is useful to understand the meaning of terms like incunabula, vellum, endpaper, unrestored, provenance and marginalia. There are numerous “Antiques Roadshow” moments. After reading “Rare Books Uncovered — True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places” you might realize that those forgotten boxes in the basement and attic might be worth taking a closer look. Happy hunting.
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