Scrap!

Further to my promise in the "100 Arses of Sen[tilde]orita Soledad" thread,
and as a sequel to the revelations concerning the so-called "******* of
Leeds" (http://tinyurl.com/4kz7y), I would like to describe a recent spat
with a seller from the beautiful town of Hawick, in the Scottish borders.

Longer-term rcbers may remember that a few years ago I bought an archive of
material relating to a forgotten Victorian novelist named Grace Webster. The
archive consisted largely of letters addressed to her, one or two by her,
some manuscripts by her, and other material, which had been found a few
months earlier in the chimney of an old house in Edinburgh. Here's the URL
that gives the background to that: http://tinyurl.com/5wmmy.

Since then, I have managed to compile a genealogical table of her family, a
task made easier by the fact that she actually wrote what amounts to a
history of her family, a copy of which I was able to get hold of in the
University Library at Cambridge (Memoir of Dr. C[harles] Webster...with an
account of Dr. A[lexander] Webster [1843], both of whom were illustrious
figures on the Edinburgh scene in their day, and have entries in the
Dictionary of National Biography). I also published (for very limited
circulation) a preliminary paper on her life and work. Since then things
have stalled a bit. Virago showed an initial interest in publishing an
edition of her novel Ingliston, along with a critical commentary, but backed
down, feeling it was more suited to a university press, and I'm still
humming and hawing over which university press to propose it to.

The only slight bad taste that came up in relation to all of this was that,
a few months after buying the archive, I found occasional letters addressed
to Grace Webster coming up on eBay, offered by the Hawick seller in
question. He is basically a stamp dealer, and the items he was offering
mostly had rather unusual stamps.

I contacted him, and it transpired that he had sold the archive to the
London dealer I had purchased it from. I asked him whether the letters he
was selling were from the same source, and he said they were. I was a bit
peeved, since I had thought what I had bought was the entire archive, but I
just thought a few dark thoughts about stamp-collecting and asked him to
send me a list of all the Grace Webster letters he had remaining. He said
they were all jumbled up with other stuff, but he would dig them out and
compile a list.

I never heard from him again. For a while I tracked his Grace Webster
auctions, which were mostly of comparatively trivial material (as far as the
actual contents of the letters were concerned), and mostly ended with no
bidders. Then, after a few months of checking and finding no further
auctions of material relating to Grace Webster, I more or less forgot about
it. I assumed he just had a small number of letters, addressed to Grace
Webster rather than written by her, and that they weren't going to add much
to what I already knew from the archive I had purchased and from other
sources I had researched.

The other day, though, while searching eBay for something quite different, I
happened upon a couple of Grace Webster letters being offered by the same
seller. I decided to write to him, reminding him that we had been in touch
previously, and saying that I might bid on the two items being offered, but
would be more interested in having a chance to buy up all the Grace Webster
material remaining in his possession. I didn't mention that I had asked for
the same thing three years previously and he had never acted on his promise
to give me a chance to do that at that time.

He had also mentioned, in our correspondence of three years previous, that
his interest was purely in the envelopes and the stamps thereon, and not in
the contents. Remembering this, and considering that his aim appeared to be
to maximise his profits on items that had unusual stamps, I suggested that
he might also consider keeping the envelopes and selling me the contents.

I can see that there is an ethical question here, but my interest was to get
hold of as much of the manuscript contents of the archive as possible, and
since he appeared to have kept back some material from the archive,
apparently for the sake of the unusual stamps, I thought this might be an
acceptable compromise.

So I was completely taken aback when he responded by ticking me off soundly
for even suggesting that the material should be split up and telling me not
to waste his time!!

I felt I had been very patient and polite with this guy so far. I hadn't
remonstrated with him for keeping back part of the archive, or for not
making good on his promise to send me a list of the Grace Webster material
remaining in his possession. But his rudeness prompted me to make up for
lost time, and I straight away told him what I thought of him in no
uncertain terms (I believe "liar" and "hypocrite" came into it somewhere).

Well, of course, I did sacrifice some of the moral high ground by replying
to him in kind, and we can pass over much of the ensuing scrap, but I think
I should mention a couple of things.

One is that he then claimed he *had* sent me a list of all the Grace Webster
material in his possession, and professed to be mortally offended that,
after making such herculean efforts, I hadn't responded. Funny that he
didn't mention this in his first reply, since he must have noticed I was
asking for something that - if he was telling the truth - he had already
given me!

He also made a convoluted claim that the archive had been sold to "another
dealer", who then broke it up into lots. Now, in our correspondence of three
years ago, he gave me to understand that he had acquired the archive at
source and sold it to the dealer in London from whom I bought it (a man of
very high reputation and professional standards, whose integrity I trust
implicitly). When I confront him with this, and point out that he is now, in
effect, accusing the London dealer of breaking up the set he accuses me of
talking "utter drivel"!

Oh, and I expect you're wondering - if it was some "other dealer" who broke
up the archive - how it is that our friend in Hawick is selling off material
from that same archive. That's simple - he has *been buying it back* when it
has reappeared on the market after being sold off by this unscrupulous
"other dealer"! This, despite the fact that I have listed Grace Webster
material as a want with ABE, eBay (though of course it lapses there if I do
not renew it regularly) and other outlets and nothing (apart from his
auctions on eBay and one or two of her novels on ABE) has come up in over
three years. Not to mention the fact that, since he was offering such
material on eBay only months after I bought the archive (which was, in turn,
only months after it had been discovered), the material must have been sold
by this "other dealer" to end purchasers who put it on the market again
within weeks - a most unlikely course of events, given that the material is
hardly what you could call volatile (witness his own auctions of her items,
most of which ended with no bids).

Finally, he claims that Grace Webster material has turned up from a second
source, of "unknown origin", and that the total number of letters relating
to Grace Webster now dwarfs the number in my collection. He says he knows of
one collector who has some 300 such items (about twice the number I
possess).

So there you have it. A dog-fight with a character who tells a story with as
many twists in it as a Swiss ski piste. I don't suppose rcbers are as likely
to engage in business with a stamp collector as they are with the Leeds
bookseller, but anyone with an interest in manuscript letters might run into
this guy, so I thought I'd share my experiences.

Of course, there is always the possibility that his story, odd as it seems,
might turn out - somehow, miraculously - to hang together. If so, I'll keep
you posted and eat my hat!

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

I wrote:

The other day [snip] I happened upon a couple of
Grace Webster letters being offered by the same seller

Just to clarify, these were, like the other material offered on eBay by the
Hawick seller, letters addressed to Grace Webster, not letters written by
her.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

What an ego you have, el ano viejo!
What makes you think anyone gives a damn about your long, boring story?

"Bob F." wrote in message
...
What an ego you have, el ano viejo!
What makes you think anyone gives a damn about your long, boring story?

What a warped brain you have Bob!
What makes you think that everyone thinks EXACTLY like you?

John, a most interesting story - keep us abreast of any further
developments!

Cheers

Tom L-M

"Tom L-M" wrote in
John, a most interesting story - keep us abreast of any further
developments!

Don't you find it difficult to breathe with your nose stuck up Yammy's butt?

Michael Adams wrote:

What emerges most strongly from the above is that
you've probably created enormous difficulties for
yourself if you ever want to prise any more Webster
material out of this character.

True, and of course he has rejoiced in pointing this out himself. But he
hasn't offered a single letter that's actually written by her, only the
occasional letter addressed to her.

The fact that he's incompetent and possibly dishonest...

Further evidence that he is the latter comes from something I just noticed
in his auction descriptions:

"PLEASE NOTE:
"We only ever purchase original *finds*, never from auctions.
Thus all our material is original and sold as it comes."

This is in direct contradiction to his claim that the Grace webster material
he is currently offering is partly material he bought back after it had bit
split up by some "other dealer" and partly material of unknown provenance
which he has bought as it comes onto the market. Actually, I believe what he
says in his auction descriptions. He probably gets his stock from estate
sales; he certainly shows a marked ignorance of the trading market.

...is neither here nor there, if he has something you
want badly enough.

Well, but how badly do I want it? I watched those other auctions end without
putting in a bid. I already have about 140 letters written to Grace Webster
over a period that covers most of her life. That, in all conscience, is
quite enough to be getting on with.

The best you can hope for probably, is start bidding on
any more stuff he chooses to put up on Ebay, although
you might want to act through someone else.

If there was anything I wanted badly enough, that is definitely what I would
do. This guy would either block my bids or - given his apparent pleasure in
provoking bad feeling - allow me to win the auction then give me a negative.
He has enough feedback (and a high enough overall positive rating) to absorb
any negative feedback I might give him.

The fact that his previous offerings have gone unsold
would seem to suggest that his claim of knowing another
collector with 300 items is probably bluff IMO.

The only person I can imagine who would want such a huge number of letters
addressed to Grace Webster would be someone like me, i.e., someone who
admired her work and was attempting to rescue her from oblivion. Even then,
like me, such a person would be more interested in letters written *by* her
than written *to* her. The fact that, to my knowledge, no academic papers
have appeared from any such person adds to my gut feeling that this is just
another of his ploys.

Temper Temper!

I told you I had an Irish grandmother! (Actually, she was very
sweet-tempered, bless her.)

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 06:36:48 -0400, "Bob F."
wrote:

What an ego you have, el ano viejo!
What makes you think anyone gives a damn about your long, boring story?

It worked just fine for me, Bob. You gonna accuse me of sucking up to
John, too?

"Bud Webster" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 06:36:48 -0400, "Bob F."
wrote:

What an ego you have, el ano viejo!
What makes you think anyone gives a damn about your long, boring story?

It worked just fine for me, Bob. You gonna accuse me of sucking up to
John, too?

If the shoe fits...

"Bob F." wrote in message ...
What an ego you have, el ano viejo!
What makes you think anyone gives a damn about your long, boring story?

Oh pshaw! John's story was both interesting and
informative. He did every INTELLIGENT reader a
valuable service by posting it.

Since one good story deserves another, here is a
little ancedote of my own. While it is not
nearly as scholarly of purpose as John's, it
IS about book collecting, so I hope every reader
of rec.collecting books will find it worthwhile.

The actual incident occurred a month or so back, but
with Halloween approaching, perhaps this is a good
time to let readers ponder my strange experience.

Not long ago I entertained people in a number
of newsgroups (not this one, since the original
post I refer to was not about book collecting)
with a post about James Whitcomb Riley's once
very famous poem, "Little Orphant Annie."

Actually, it is a delightful and inspiring
rhyme, one that almost every literate American
could recite a line or two from at the beginning
of the 20th century.

My post was a humorous one (albeit with a serious
subtext) in which I argued that the reason
few people are familiar with "Little Orphant
Annie" today was that it is politically incorrect
according to way so many librarians and educators
view things. As a result, for a few generations
it has not generally been included in anthologies
of children's poems, and (I would argue) America
is poorer for that.

Anyway, when I wrote that post I could not find
a copy of "Little Orphant Annie" in the Tower
Room. Finally, I found one at some Canadian
website (which is odd because Riley was a famous
Hoosier poet).

Well, only a day or two after making that post,
I found myself browsing in the "Donated Book
Store" of my local library branch. Although
there was not much of interest that day, I
spied an ususual-looking blue book.

It turned out to be a volume edited by the late,
great comedian Red Skelton. The title is
A RED SKELTON IN YOUR CLOSET, and the cover
blurb promises, "Ghost stories gay and grim
selected by the master of comedy." (Yes,
I did notice that it has "gay" and "closet"
on the cover, but let's leave that one
alone; I don't want to even go there.
There is nothing in the book to indicate
any double entendre on Red's part regarding
the title.)

A RED SKELTON IN YOUR CLOSET is published by
Grosset and Dunlap and copyrighted 1965. It
has a blue dust jacket featuring the identical
humorous picture on the attractive blue
front pictorial (Grosset's washable variety)
board.

The picture on the d.j. and front board is a
caricature of Red Skelton pulling back a stage
curtain with one hand while with the other
hand inserting an "e" between the "l" and
"t" of his last name in the title, so it
reads SKELETON.

One odd fact of the cover is that the
sketch is obviously done by Al Hirshfeld
(who in fact signed his name in his trademark
style near the bottom of the illustration).
Yet, Hirshfelf is uncredited both on the dust
jacket and in the book. On top of that, the
person who did the humorously-spooky interior
illustrations goes uncredited also.

Well, I left the library a happy man,
delighted with my Halloween find. Yet,
the real surprise came when I got home
and went through the book more thoroughly.

I found to my astonishment that Editor Skelton
had included -- you guessed it! -- "Little
Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley! It
was one of only a couple of poems in the entire
book.

It could only happen to Bill Palmer. I mean,
what are the odds of someone's writing a post
about a poem that he does not even have a
copy of, and then -- with absolutely no
thought to the poem -- buying an interesting-
looking bargain book a day or two and later
at the library store and finding the very
same poem, which in fact turns out to be one
of only a couple of poems included in a book
of mostly prose selections, by -- of all
editors! -- Red Skelton?


Mr. Palmer
Room 314

"Bill Palmer" wrote in message
om...
"Bob F." wrote in message
...
What an ego you have, el ano viejo!
What makes you think anyone gives a damn about your long, boring story?

snip

It could only happen to Bill Palmer. I mean,
what are the odds of someone's writing a post
about a poem that he does not even have a
copy of, and then -- with absolutely no
thought to the poem -- buying an interesting-
looking bargain book a day or two and later
at the library store and finding the very
same poem, which in fact turns out to be one
of only a couple of poems included in a book
of mostly prose selections, by -- of all
editors! -- Red Skelton?


Actually, the odds are good enough that there's a word for it:
synchronicity.

Alice