BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!

Subject: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:35 PM

What an incredible book which is for sale on ebay...thought some of you might like to see it...French Book of Hours from 1440, be sure to look at the picture gallery...just incredible: Click Here.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:48 PM

Man, that is awesomely beautiful, Kat. Wish I had 25 grand to throw around. But it makes me glad to just know it is in the world.

A

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:56 PM

Me, too, Amos. Take a look at some of the other First Editions and rare collectible books listed. Incredible stuff most from Europe...I suppose it is easier to find things like that over there.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:37 PM

And seen this one?

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: skipy
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:42 PM

Go girl!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:44 PM

Years and years and years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I was made "Rare Book Librarian" at the college. Since I had no training at all for this, I was placed in charge of fifty-two (52) titles of incunabula (books printed prior to 1501), a second edition of the "Malleus Maleficarum," a book of botany that was illustrated with watercolors and printed in 1748, a first edition of Joyce's "Ulysses", and other odds and ends that would and did delight the heart of a bibliomaniac.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:08 PM

Once upon a lifetime ago I saw the incunabla of a very old learned organisation. It was sometime in the mid-late 70's when this organisation was giving my Govt agency library 19th century volumes of interest to us due to lack of space (I think).

The organisation was one of those learned associations formed all over the world in the 19th century where gentlemen of learning collected learned books from around the world to expand their own learning.

The librarian was a lady of great age (to 20-something me!) & just pulled ancient books out of a cupboard to show me. I don't recall touching them & I don't recall her hands in white gloves, either.

If I could ony remember it's name or just what incunabla they had I might be trace some of the volumes I saw.

A few years earlier when I was studying Librarianship the class saw similar books at the Universtity's Rare Book collection & heard the Librarian talk about his battles with maintenance who thought air conditioning was only needed in working hours!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:20 PM

You know it, skipy!

The libraries at Smith and Amherst Colleges in Massachusetts, as well as the public library in Northampton, MA, were full of incredibly old/rare, (though not as old as the above mentioneds) fine books, some of them on the ordinary shelves. We were astounded at what was readily available for check out. Some of the book stores around there had some great treasures.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 03:37 AM

........and some of those great treasures were 36500 days overdue at Amherst.(:<))

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: autolycus
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 07:19 AM

katlaughing, I was wondering what about the Book of Hours had you going wow, sorry, woooooooooow, no , wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.?

   The age? the beauty? the rarity? the value? the preciousness? the delicate state? the history? what it reminds you of? the imagined author? the original buyer? where you csn find stuff like that to flog, sorry, sell?





    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Bainbo
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:04 AM

Yeah, I was about to go for it, but then I noticed the shipping costs.

$45? That's outrageous! Huh! You can keep your fancy book.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 10:04 AM

LOL, Spaw, you bet!

Ivor, I think mostly the beauty, age and sense of history. To know it has probably been touched by so many people down through the ages; to imagine what their lives were like, what fears and joys, etc. must have led them to thumb through its pages.

Of course, if I found one I would probably have to sell it, so the value is an attraction, but I don't know if I could sell it, if I found one, if you know what I mean. I guess if we were destitute, etc. I probably could.:-) I love OLD things, what can I say?

Bainbo...what a cheapskate!*bg*

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: autolycus
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 10:10 AM

katlaughing,I look forward to the story you've outlined !!

   As a Cancerian collector,or course I know what you mean.

   Tho' I get more of a thrill,secondly, from finding something I regard as a valuable, for a song.

   I'm with Bainbo. Those postal costs are soooo reeeeeeeeeediculous.

   (Wish I'd thought of the joke first)




      Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 10:32 AM

Those are the sorts of things a library has "just because." Just because beauty needs to be preserved. Just because it's a connection with another time. Just because....

We have a collection of autographed books at work: Gene Roddenberry, Brian Wildesmith, Stephen King, Madeline Le Engle, Tomi di Paulo, Dana Stabenow, Geoffrey Chaucer (just kidding!), Beverly Cleary...even an autographed "Where The Wild Things Are." We have first editions of Twain's "The American Claimant" and Schliemann's "Ilios" (the first American edition). No, they no longer check out. Instead, we use them for displays and to try to help the community realize what a treasure a library is. And before anyone asks, yes, we have duplicates that circulate.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 11:41 AM

Wonderful, Rapaire. Just because is a GOOD reason.

Ivor...hmm...maybe I will use that for my next NaNoWriMo novel!

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 03:37 PM

...And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

Same reason for books....

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: diesel
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 04:12 PM

What a teasing link you posted Kat - Thanks !

I recently made a swap of a book, a 105 year old book of poetry, of poems stretching back to ancient times and translated from old latin and Gaelic.
I had found it in the shop of a modern art museum and thought it starnge to be on sale.
What I really loved about it was that was signed as a gift from one person to another - so not only the poems had history, so too did the book.

I can't sell or give away books as I like them too much - but the swap was a good one - for a modern book of chineses recipes and coloured photo-plates of ancient drawings and txts.

The swap was biased not really in my favour, but it was with my sister - So I can still see and borrow anytime I want..

Ah to have 25.000 spare !

Diesel

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 06:00 PM

I saw this really neat book in Dublin. At Trinity College. If anyone is in Dublin and Trinity College Library has a book sale, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd pick it up for me. It's old and in Latin and someone drew and coloured all over the pages, which I think are make of old leather or something.

It was in a glass case in the "The Long Room" if that helps. Dunno who wrote it.....

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 12:39 AM

Haha! THAT'D be the one to have, Rapaire!! Something with a little il-lew-mi-nay-shun, eh?

diesel, you're welcome. It is something, isn't it? Sounds like you did a good swap and still have "visitation rights." Good for you.

I cannot sell some of the books I've had forever or ones that belonged to family members, but I have given several away to a friend who lost all of hers in a house fire. It feels good to know they went to a good home.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 11:22 AM

I have two books, "Annuals" for boys and girls, from the late 19th Century. They were Christmas gifts from one great-great aunt to her sister. Great literature they ain't -- they're pretty mawkish and overly sentimental -- but they're family and a tie to my ancestors.

I also have a tiny (maybe 2.5 inches x 1.5 inch) book of the Psalms from about 1708. It's one of those used for traveling back then and was a present from my wife's late aunt.

And some "small press" things, including a Roycrofters "Hamlet."

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 02:09 PM

Ah, this is getting fun, sharing our "treasures." Let's see I have a First of Mark Twain's "Tramp Abroad;" an original Paul Lawrence Dunbar "Howdy, Honey, Howdy";some teeny-tiny "Tiny Golden Books given to me by a cousin; several Will James books; and many others. The one I treasured the most growing up, was "The Home Book of Poetry" given to my great-grandmother in 1881. It's got some of my favs. including "Bingen on the Rhine" and one my grandmother used as a schoolteacher,then gave to me, "How to tell stories to children" by Sara Cone Bryant. It has some very fav. stories including Raggylug, Why the Sea is Salt, and Billy Begg and his bull. Oh, another one I am proud of: "Woodcraft" the original 1939 by Bernard S. Mason, still being pub. in paperback.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:39 PM

I've recently inherited the first edition, three volume set of "Lee's Lieutenant" by Douglas Freeman. I also have Pershing's "My Experiences in the World War." And a copy of Dan Beard's autobiography.

They're not worth much, monetarily. But they mean something to me.

In fact, all my books, all 6,000+ of them, mean something to me. If the did't I wouldn't have them.

Subject: RE: BS: $ 20,000 + book on ebay - wow!
From: skipy
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:51 PM

Old books appearing soon in a skip near you!
Skipy!