The next day at noon, as I crossed the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, I was aware of a familiar figure who waved and attracted great attention with a coach whip. It was Wee-hicle.
“Say, young Rosenbach,” he holloed, “what do you mean, keepin’ me waitin’ all night on Sansom Street?” He came toward me on a run, accusingly. “Sneakin’ out on Fifteenth Street, you and your friend! I want my money! I waited outside all night long. Twenty-five dollars, night rates!” To quiet his shouting, I motioned him to follow me to my room. I had forgotten him completely. Had the preceding night been a dream or a nightmare? Surely it was neither, for there on my bookshelf was the missal in its old gilt binding—the book which had been forced so generously upon me. I paid Wee-hicle gladly and figured his services cheap at the price. As to the gentleman who presented me with the volume, it was Joseph M. Fox. He later became my partner in the book business.
The auction business is an old, old game. Herodotus, somewhere in his writings, describes the auctions which took place once a year in all Babylonian villages. In those days, before the advent of the bachelor girl, despairing parents hopefully offered their surplus maidens in the auction mart, where they disposed of them in marriage to the highest bidders. Then there were the auctions which followed military victories. The Romans solved the problem of dividing captives and other spoils of war in this popular manner.
But the first book auctions, as far as records show, began in the latter part of the seventeenth century in Holland. The enterprising Dutchman who originated the idea of selling literary works by competitive bid, whether he was a book lover or interested only in cold commercial hope of gain, should have his memory appreciatively marked by periods of celebration down the years. Can’t you imagine every true book lover bowing to the name of this fellow who brought a new and sharp-edged enjoyment into the book game?
Of all the branches of the sport connected with book collecting, that of attending book auctions is the greatest, the most stirring. I presume some patient mathematician knows the number of facets of the Koh-i-nur diamond, but no one will ever be able to count the emotional reflections which take place during a book auction in the hearts and minds of men and women who are enamored of books. The book auction is an adventure. Other adventures may lose their glamour if you repeat them, but each experience at a sale of books brings a delightful thrill never to be duplicated.
Other experiences in your life may have been exciting, and you will always shrink from repeating them, in the fear, perhaps, that they may lose some one quality. But the book auction, which includes the sale of literary manuscripts and letters, continues to offer those very elements which first fascinated you. Don’t be surprised when you find yourself one of the habitual adventurers. Unsympathetic, misunderstanding friends may accuse you of being a book-auction fiend, but you will listen indulgently and let it go at that.
Most of the great books of the world have found their way to the auction room at one time or another. Bibliophiles of renown have sat restlessly out front bidding against one another. It is these, rare books and the buyers of them, who have given to the auction its illustrious background. Nearly every collector enters the auction field to enjoy its seductive pleasures some time during the period of his fever.
When you first go to an auction you firmly believe that prices are at their highest. The complaint of high prices is as old as the auction game itself. The morning after every sale you read the same old story in your newspaper, of the “crazy,” “mad,” and “exorbitant” prices which were paid. Present prices always seem high. If you keep a record of them you will find, in ten years’ time, that these prices are extremely low. As a matter of fact, prices will never be lower than they are to-day. Certain items may fluctuate, but in general the great classics of all literature can be revalued upward every ten years. Very often you may have the feeling that you paid too much for some book—in other words, you were stung; and it may be so. But the beauty of it all is that an auction holds fair play for all sides. Even the experienced buyer is liable to get stung. You are in good company. And joy of joys, the auctioneer, your arch enemy, sometimes gets charmingly stung himself! For who can say when some bargain will drop unexpectedly into the collector’s maw?
BOOK AUCTION AT THE ANDERSON GALLERIES, NEW YORK, WITH DR. ROSENBACH ATTENDING