Book of Mormon desecration

Bob Finnan wrote:

John R. Yamamoto-Wilson (aka hypocrisy in japan) wrote:

self serving blather eliminated

Now Yammy, be a good boy or I'll send big bad John Pelan over there to
beat the **** out of you!

Oh, come on, Bob! You're getting soft in your old age. What's the point
in taunting you if you can't rise to the bait?

Peace and love,

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Is anybody else outraged at this?




By which part ?


By the part where a relatively rare book is broken into individual
pages for no other reason than the greed of its owner.


...

No other reason?

That isn't what was stated in the article is it?

It states that the Church actually encouraged her "They said 'No, go
ahead and do this project because it will touch more lives over the
long run,'

So why are you choosing to completely ignore this point ?

That part's obviously bull**** ... or it was obvious to me, at any
rate.

8. Curt Bench, a Mormon bookseller whom the article cites as as a
critic of Schlie's plan to sell these sheets individually, has also
"sold pages from a first-edition Book of Mormon". (That does make one
wonder whether his criticism was just sour grapes.)




John, the article says that Bench had sold individual leaves only from
incomplete copies. I spent part of my recent vacation reading about the
bookmen of the Silver Age of book collecting (John Carter, David Randall,
Percy Muir, etc.). They seem to have come to a pretty wide consensus that
it's acceptable to so use incomplete copies, but unacceptable with complete
copies.


For myself, I've come to the conclusion that people should do what they want
with their books. I hope they preserve them or use them in some significant
way (e.g. displaying disbound Audubon prints for ornithological study), but
we can't police everyone. Also I think these stories of book breaking often
reenforce the preservation instincts among the rest of us.

To me, breaking a rare book into pages to sell it, or taking out
the plates to sell them individually, is the same as cutting a
painting by an Old Master into 2 by 2 inch squares and selling
them individually. Someone who would destroy a rare book to sell
individual pages might as well be selling fish, or shoes, since
the only motive is money. He has no business selling rare books.

Any First is special...


Even Jeffrey Archer ? This whole "Firsts are special" is something
I've never really understood about book collecting.

A First Edition is the ground zero of a published work. Every
later change or expansion is made in comparison with the original
text. They have importance to me only when they are rare (down to
a few hundred copies or less) because they aren't making any more
of them -- they can only diminish in number, never increase. I
wouldn't pay a large amount for a first edition just because it is
a first edition -- I don't have the collector's bug -- but I
would hate to see a rare first edition disappear just because
dealers got greedy and started cutting copies up to sell
individual pages. As far as the content of the "Book of Mormon"
goes, from what little I've read, it's clap-twaddle. But it is a
significant work from an historical perspective. And what monster
would buy an individual page cut from a book?

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 21:21:57 GMT, Al Smith wrote:

the same as cutting a
painting by an Old Master into 2 by 2 inch squares and selling
them individually.

I have a few such pieces - Richard Long's photograph "A Smell of Sulphur
In the Wind" (Google will probably explain the rest.)

Al Smith wrote:

Someone who would destroy a rare book to sell individual
pages might as well be selling fish, or shoes, since the
only motive is money.

Why do you keep saying this? Michael pointed out to you that other
motives were cited in the article you quoted, and I even went to the
lengths of listing them for you - all nine of them!
(http://tinyurl.com/akuq4)

There are also cases of museums, etc., breaking up a book in order to
display the contents. In the UK, at least, money is not generally an
issue in such cases, since museum entrance is mostly free. And here is
a link to an Exlibris posting that gives a detailed account of the
disbinding of a manuscript for archival/scholarly purposes:
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byfor.../msg00105.html

I share your reservations about splitting up books up to a point, but
my sympathy wears thin when you consistently ignore anything which does
not fit into your preconceived notion that "the only motive is money".

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Someone who would destroy a rare book to sell individual
pages might as well be selling fish, or shoes, since the
only motive is money.


Why do you keep saying this? Michael pointed out to you that other
motives were cited in the article you quoted, and I even went to the
lengths of listing them for you - all nine of them!

Oh, for heaven's sake. This person can get $75,000 for the book
intact, but (she hopes) half a million if she cuts it up. Why do
you think she is cutting it up? Really, why? Because she wants to
spread the joy of Mormonism? Use some common sense.

For further perspectives on this issue, see:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...b2a16f6fa5c799

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Oh, my God! I just chased up a reference in the rec.antiques thread,
and Mark Hoffman, the guy the article has quoted as raising his
professional eyebrows at Helen Schlie has actually made it into the
records as "one of the most skilled forgers in history"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann).

The journalist who wrote the article you quoted should certainly be
eating humble pie, Al. Perhaps you should take a helping, too.

Me, too - if there's one thing I'm short on in my diet it's humble pie!
(Come on, Bobby, you stalking weirdo; if you think that's an
invitation, go right ahead!)

John
http:rarebooksinjapan.com

Very mature Yammy.
Now your goose is cooked - Big Bad John Pelan is on his way to kick
your ass!