An “Oration in Carpenter’s Hall” in Philadelphia brought close to a thousand dollars; but, in addition to the rare portraits and views, there were fifty-seven autograph letters in it. Sold separately, they would have brought several times as much. Smith was the buyer. Then there came a “History of Christ Church,” full of most interesting material, as “old Christ Church” is the most beautiful and interesting colonial church in America. Where was the rector, where were the wardens and the vestry thereof? No sign of them. Smith was the buyer.
The books were going and for almost nothing, in every case to “Smith.” At last came the “Memoirs of Nicholas Biddle,” of the famous old Bank of the United States. Hear! ye Biddles, if any Biddles there be. There are, in plenty, but not here. Smith, having bought all the rest, stopped when he saw me bidding; the hammer fell, and I was the owner of the most interesting volume in the whole Dreer collection,—the volume I had so often coveted as a boy, with the letters and portraits of Penn, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, and so forth,—in all twenty-eight of them, and mine for ten dollars apiece, book, portraits, and binding thrown in. It is painful to witness the slaughter of another’s possessions; it makes one wonder—But that is not what we collect books for.
In the last analysis pretty much everything, including poetry, is merchandise, and every important book sooner or later turns up in the auction rooms. The dozen or fifty men present represent the bookbuyers of the world—you are buying against them. When you sell a book at auction the whole world is your market. This refers, of course, only to important sales. At other times books are frequently disposed of at much less than their real value. These sales it pays the book-collector to attend, personally, if he can; or, better still, to entrust his bid to the auctioneer or to some representative in whom he has confidence. Most profitable of all for the buyer are the sales where furniture, pictures, and rugs are disposed of, with, finally, a few books knocked down by one who knows nothing of their value.
Many are the volumes in my library which have been picked up on such occasions for a very few dollars, and which are worth infinitely more than I paid for them. I have in mind my copy of the first edition of Boswell’s “Corsica,” in fine old calf, with the inscription “To the Right Honourable, the Earl Marischal of Scotland, as a mark of sincere regard and affection, from the Author, James Boswell.” This stands me only a few dollars. In London I should have been asked—and would have paid—twenty pounds for it.
Some men haunt the auction rooms all the time. I do not. I have a living to make and I am not quick in making it; moreover, the spirit of competition invariably leads me astray, and I never come away without finding myself the owner of at least one book, usually a large one, which should properly be entitled, “What Will He Do With It?”
No book-collector should be without a book-plate, and a book-plate once inserted in a volume should never be removed. When the plate is that of a good collector, it constitutes an indorsement, and adds a certain interest and value to the volume.
I was once going through the collection of a friend, and observing the absence of a book-plate, I asked him why it was. He replied, “The selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter.” It is; and I should never have been able to get one to suit me entirely had not my good friend, Osgood of Princeton, come to my rescue.
