Discovered "goodies"

Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...

I haven't been around much recently but have lurked whenever I could.
Over the past couple of years I have finally gotten most of the books
catalogued and made some surprising discoveries. I used Bookfinder to
get an idea of what many of them may be "worth" (academic, as I don't
sell books) and was floored by one or two of them. Late one night, I
entered "The Queen of Puerto Rico" by Joe Frank, an ARC...and was
amazed to see $300 for the only one listed. I looked for it this week
and saw only hard covers from $120 up. I had picked it up someplace,
just because I like ARC's (hi, Mike) and it was a dollar. Then, there
was "Murder in the Holy City", around a hundred dollars, two copies on
the shelf, no idea where I picked up those.

Have any of you found till-now undiscovered treasures on your shelves?
Sorta like finding Easter eggs when you were a kid...

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...

I haven't been around much recently but have lurked whenever I could.
Over the past couple of years I have finally gotten most of the books
catalogued and made some surprising discoveries. I used Bookfinder to
get an idea of what many of them may be "worth" (academic, as I don't
sell books) and was floored by one or two of them. Late one night, I
entered "The Queen of Puerto Rico" by Joe Frank, an ARC...and was
amazed to see $300 for the only one listed. I looked for it this week
and saw only hard covers from $120 up. I had picked it up someplace,
just because I like ARC's (hi, Mike) and it was a dollar. Then, there
was "Murder in the Holy City", around a hundred dollars, two copies on
the shelf, no idea where I picked up those.

Have any of you found till-now undiscovered treasures on your shelves?
Sorta like finding Easter eggs when you were a kid...

I think that qualifies as a great "brag"....especially when you found
it on your own shelf!

Kris

wrote:
Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...


Hi, Ann. Wow, it's like Old Home Week around here. Now if only Scot
would come back...

I haven't been around much recently but have lurked whenever I could.
Over the past couple of years I have finally gotten most of the books
catalogued and made some surprising discoveries. I used Bookfinder to
get an idea of what many of them may be "worth" (academic, as I don't
sell books) and was floored by one or two of them. Late one night, I
entered "The Queen of Puerto Rico" by Joe Frank, an ARC...and was
amazed to see $300 for the only one listed. I looked for it this week
and saw only hard covers from $120 up. I had picked it up someplace,
just because I like ARC's (hi, Mike) and it was a dollar. Then, there
was "Murder in the Holy City", around a hundred dollars, two copies on
the shelf, no idea where I picked up those.

Have any of you found till-now undiscovered treasures on your shelves?
Sorta like finding Easter eggs when you were a kid...


I mentioned one a long while back--a Reynolds Price book that I
discovered, after owning it for a couple years, was signed on the second
half-title page. Not a big-ticket item in any case, just a nice surprise.

Another one: About 2 or 3 years ago, while checking the values of my
Amy Hempel firsts, I was dumbfounded to see what her second book, _At
the Gates of the Animal Kingdom_ , was going for, even in paperback
reprints. It didn't take long to discover that Chuck _Fight Club_
Palahniuk had mentioned in an interview that Hempel was his favorite
writer--so all the Palahniuk fans were seeking out her books. _AtGotAK_
is particularly hard to find because, after the hardcover edition and
two trade-paper versions, it's been out of print for about a decade. I
think I read somewhere that it hasn't been returned to print because
there's some legal mess about who owns the rights, but I could be mistaken.


--Jon Meyers

On 15 Apr 2006 15:32:11 -0700, "
wrote:

Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...

Ann! Good to see you back.

I recently found out that a book I've had for years was apparently
worth quite a bit - nothing unusual there, of course, most of us have
at least a few valuable books on our shelves. But in this case, it
was a book I'd picked up for a couple of dollars almost 20 years ago
as a reference, and it wasn't until just a few months ago that I began
hearing it was scarce: _Volume: International Discography of the New
Wave_. What I have is the revised edition, but the book is apparently
rare enough in any form for the second printing to ride on its
coattails.

Don't know if I'll ever give it up, mind you. I like to hang on to my
references, you never know when you'll need them.

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 06:47:29 GMT, Bud Webster
wrote:

On 15 Apr 2006 15:32:11 -0700, "
wrote:

Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...

Ann! Good to see you back.

I recently found out that a book I've had for years was apparently
worth quite a bit - nothing unusual there, of course, most of us have
at least a few valuable books on our shelves. But in this case, it
was a book I'd picked up for a couple of dollars almost 20 years ago
as a reference, and it wasn't until just a few months ago that I began
hearing it was scarce: _Volume: International Discography of the New
Wave_. What I have is the revised edition, but the book is apparently
rare enough in any form for the second printing to ride on its
coattails.

The big, thick (~2"), black one is the one that's sought after and
sells for about $100 give or take a bit. The thin red one is more like
a $20 book and was still available new at the published price a couple
of years back, though it's probably dried up by now.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...


Have any of you found till-now undiscovered treasures on your shelves?
Sorta like finding Easter eggs when you were a kid...


I have found a few, mostly when I was looking up current prices on horse and
dog books I had purchased 20 or more years ago. I was delighted to find a
couple for which I paid a pittance that were worth in three figures. The
only book I ever in my life bought new as an investment, *The Saddlebred:
America's Horse of Distinction*, turned out to be a good one. Purchased for
$40, I see it now listed on AddALL from a low of $195 to a very optimistic
$895. Don't know if I'll ever sell mine, though. It brings back some
wonderful memories. On the other hand, should I ever stumble across another
copy, I'll know to grab it!

Alice

Ann Greenfield wrote and I snipped:

......Have any of you found till-now undiscovered treasures on your
shelves? Sorta like finding Easter eggs when you were a kid...

Dear Ann,

Welcome back! I'm going to take you down memory lane with a thread that
originated on July 30, 2001. MIke Berro, Jon Meyers, and Lawrence
Person were some of the RCBers who responded to Denise Enck's thread
"Unmarked Association Copies." I responded to the thread with a
question about anunsigned manuscript of an aphorism by Logan Pearsall
Smith. I had acquired the manuscript after asking and receiving advice
from Mke Berro before I bought it. Thanks MIke!

This yet undiscovered treasure sat on my bookshelves for over four years
while I attempted to find the answer to my unanswered question: Was this
piece of prose ever published? I never found "Kings of Persia" listed in
the Table of Contents of any of my LPS books, and I have more than a
few. Here's the old thread; my response (18) is near the end:
http://www.tinyurl.com/pu56x

For years, when I checked the current values of some of my valuable
books - don't we all do that - I would also search the web to see if
"Kings of Persia" was ever published. Finally - and I don't know why I
hadn't thought of it before - I googled the first few words of the first
sentence of the aphorism: "What things there are to write..." I got
over twenty hits from quotation websites. I had already proven to
myself that Logan Pearsall Smith was the author by handwriting
comparison, but it was nice to know that he had published the aphorism.
I went through my LPS books again and finally found the aphorism in my
copy of "All Trivia," London, 1933. This book containied "Trivia"
(1917) "More Trivia" (1922) "Afterthoughts" (1931) and "Last Words"
(1933) into one book. I found the aphorism in the "More Trivia"
section, not under the title, "Kings of Persia," but under the title
"Things to Write."

There's more. While comparing the book version and the online versions
to the manuscript version, I realized that not only was the title
changed; several sentences were rephrased prior to publication in 1921.

I know that Morley and Smith went to the same school (Haverford College)
and that they corresponded with each other. Haverford has several
Morley/Smith letters in their collection; the earliest from Smith to
Morley is dated Dec. 29, 1921. "More Trivia" was first published in New
York in 1921 and in London in 1922. Morley was an editor at Doubleday
where Smith's "Trivia" was first published in 1917. Some of the
individual pieces of "Trivia" were first published in 1902 at the
Chiswick Press as well as in the "New Statesman" and "New Republic."
All in all, I believe it is safe to say that Christopher Morley had the
draft of "Kings of Persia" in his hands prior to its publication in
"More Trivia" in 1921.

Here are the three versions:

Draft Version:

Kings of Persia

What things there are to write if one could only write them! *My mind
is full of gleaming thoughts; gay moods and dreams and mysterious,
moth-like meditations hover and fan their painted wings in the garden of
my imagination. *If only I could catch them, they would make me
famous; but I can hardly ever catch them - always the fairest, those
freaked
with the most amazing blues and crimsons, flutter beyond my reach and
eternally elude me.

The childish and ever-baffled chase of these
airy nothings sometimes seems, for one of sober years in a sad world,
rather a trifling
occupation; yet have I not read of the great Kings of Persia, who used
to ride out and hunt butterflies wih hawks, nor deemed this pretty
pastime beneath their royal dignity?


Book Version:

Things To Write

What things there are to write if one could only write them! *My mind
is full of gleaming thoughts; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like
meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. They
would make my fortune if I could catch them; but always the rarest,
those freaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my
reach.

The ever-baffled chase of these filmy nothings often seems, for one of
sober years in a sad world, a trifling occupation. But have I not read
of the great Kings of Persia, who used to ride out to hawk for
butterflies, nor deemed this
pastime beneath their royal dignity?


Online Version:

Untitled Quotation

What things there are to write if one could only write them! *My mind
is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like
meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. They
would make my fortune if I could catch them; but always the rarest,
those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond
my reach.

The ever-baffled chase of these filmy nothings often seems, for one of
sober years in a sad world, a trifling occupation. But have I not read
of the great Kings of Persia, who used to ride out to hawk for
butterflies, nor deemed this
pastime beneath their royal dignity?

Several sentences written in the draft were rephrased when the aphorism
was published in the book; however LPS reverted to the original version
of a phrase he had corrected in the draft:

In the draft, LPS replaced "make my fortune" with "make me famous." He
changed "my" to "me" and crossed out "fortune," writing "famous" above
it: However, in the printed book version, he reverted back to "make my
fortune."

It is also interesting to note that all but one of the online versions
have the word "thought" instead of "thoughts" and "Streaked" instead of
"freaked." Although "streaked" appears to be a better word to use in
the sentence, the word in both the draft and the book is "freaked."
Kudos go to CIOS (Communication Institute for Online Scholarship) for
sticking to the words in the book version.

As a courtesy, I will forward this thread to the webmasters of the
various quotation websites who have the aphorism on their websites.

All in all, my undiscovered treasure that was sitting on my bookshelf
for almost five years turns out to be a draft of an LPS aphorism that
was retitled and rephrased at the time of publication in 1921.

Cheers,
Jerry Morris

Moi's Books About Books: http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7
Moi's LIbrary http://www.moislibrary.com My Sentimental Library
http://www.picturetrail.com/mylibrary Florida Bibliophile Society
http://www.floridabibliophilesociety.org

I suppose this qualifies...

From time to time I browse through the recent finds and discover that the
book is an autographed copy. Along the last while, I have discovered I had
signed copies of Peter Ustinov, Robert B. Parker, Tim Winston, and even
Minette Walters. I suspect that many of these surface as a result of
hundreds of books being signed for the major booksellers, some of them
undoubtedly graced by a sticker so stating when initially sold.

As with John Dunning and "The Sign of the Book", I do view these with
caution, and I suppose if advertised the proper thing to do would be to note
"purportedly signed by the writer". A local ne'er-do-well has offered to
"autograph" any book I want. By local myth, he can sign anyone's signature
after a few moment of study. I note that even on eBay, signatures are not
worth too much - a "signed" copy of Harris' "Silence of the Lambs" recently
sold for about $30; the first edition normally sells for $150 and up.

Willow



wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello, Jon, Bud, Lawrence, Scot (if you are still here), Mike, Jerry,
Bob, Michael, Kris, and all old-and-new-timers...

I haven't been around much recently but have lurked whenever I could.
Over the past couple of years I have finally gotten most of the books
catalogued and made some surprising discoveries. I used Bookfinder to
get an idea of what many of them may be "worth" (academic, as I don't
sell books) and was floored by one or two of them. Late one night, I
entered "The Queen of Puerto Rico" by Joe Frank, an ARC...and was
amazed to see $300 for the only one listed. I looked for it this week
and saw only hard covers from $120 up. I had picked it up someplace,
just because I like ARC's (hi, Mike) and it was a dollar. Then, there
was "Murder in the Holy City", around a hundred dollars, two copies on
the shelf, no idea where I picked up those.

Have any of you found till-now undiscovered treasures on your shelves?
Sorta like finding Easter eggs when you were a kid...