Rarest book?

[Dust Jacket Collector]

   I think a dip into War and Peace is called for -where the central character only buys a book after he has finished the one he already has. It would have worked wonders with the bank balance across the decades.....

That would only work if I had President Kennedy’s reading speed - he claimed 1200 words/min. I certainly wouldn’t have acquired many volumes of the Official History!

[Black Maria]

18 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I’ve had the book for years but never got around to reading it. Maybe I should. Well done on finding a copy.

Thanks Alan , i'm still working my way through my P.O.W memoirs at the moment . 

[Guest]

On 03/09/2020 at 00:52, seaJane said:

I have a copy of that

       And a starring role perhaps Jane? I think we should be told. 

 

[seaJane]

And a starring role perhaps Jane? I think we should be told.

Alas, my fifteen minutes of fame keep eluding me ... 

[Madmeg]

With Cavalry In 1915

The British Trooper in The Trench Line

Through the Second Battle of Ypres

Frederic Coleman FRGS

 

 

Pretty sure I came across a copy of With cavalry in 1915 not so long ago...... had a look put it back on the shelf- now which of the many secondhand bookstores I browse in was it....

[Black Maria]

The dust jacket 

[MikeyH]

6 hours ago, Black Maria said:

The dust jacket 

 Somewhere I have a copy of the book described on the rear cover, alas with no dustjacket.

 

Mike.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

10 minutes ago, MikeyH said:

 Somewhere I have a copy of the book described on the rear cover, alas with no dustjacket.

 

Mike.

That would be this one.

[MikeyH]

1 minute ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

That would be this one.

A very quick response. I would have expected the car that features in the

book to have been shown in a more pictorial dustjacket.  Many thanks.

Mike.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

By no means a scarce book but I don't recall ever having seen a copy in its jacket which more or less mimics the image on the cloth beneath.

Published by Cassell in 1916. Not sure how much of 'The Truth' it contains being written by the Official War Correspondent.

[Black Maria]

Well done Alan a nice jacket ,like you say it's the same as the cloth but at least they didn't opt for a plain boring one ( like my last purchase  )

[charlie2]

Two further scarce(ish) additions to my OH collection arrived from NZ today - Military Effort of the British Empire and the report of the Battlefields Nomenclature Committee. The copy of Military Effort looks to be the one on Alan‘s site! 
 

I had a bit of a shock as the books were delivered by the post to the Customs and Excise office and of course they wanted their pound of flesh. Perhaps something to bear in mind when ordering books etc from Europe if there is a hard Brexit.

Charlie

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Excellent finds, both volumes distinctly scarce these days. My copy of the Stats volume is ex-Library & they replaced that original cover with a ghastly acid green faux leather.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

My copy of the Stats volume is ex-Library & they replaced that original cover with a ghastly acid green faux leather.

 

 Oh dear, sounds like one I sold decades ago ex-lib. Wandsworth (or rather Battersea- particularly fond of garish green)  I suspect it's actually leather cloth

SMEBE has unexpected non-Great War uses-Its excellent for setting dingbat tie-break questions in pub quizzes-the one that went down best with,well,a largely drunk audience in Highgate was "How many camels were in service with the British Army at the end of the First World War?"  Yep, the answer is there-last statistic is for October 1918. With the time and energy to compute such statistics, how could the British possibly have lost the war?

[barkalotloudly]

12 hours ago, charlie2 said:

Two further scarce(ish) additions to my OH collection arrived from NZ today - Military Effort of the British Empire and the report of the Battlefields Nomenclature Committee. The copy of Military Effort looks to be the one on Alan‘s site! 
 

I had a bit of a shock as the books were delivered by the post to the Customs and Excise office and of course they wanted their pound of flesh. Perhaps something to bear in mind when ordering books etc from Europe if there is a hard Brexit.

Charlie

no duty on books full stop i would perhaps suggest they were not described correctly on the customs declaration i have had this problem in the past !

 

[GreyC]

Hi,

no duty on books to GB or no duty on books generally? As these books went to Germany...

Best,

GreyC

[charlie2]

1 hour ago, barkalotloudly said:

no duty on books full stop

No duty was payable but 5% import tax was as they came from a non-EU country. It‘s the first I‘ve had a problem even though I have bought books from outside the EU before.

Charlie
 

[Dust Jacket Collector]

 

 Oh dear, sounds like one I sold decades ago ex-lib. Wandsworth (or rather Battersea- particularly fond of garish green)  I suspect it's actually leather cloth

SMEBE has unexpected non-Great War uses-Its excellent for setting dingbat tie-break questions in pub quizzes-the one that went down best with,well,a largely drunk audience in Highgate was "How many camels were in service with the British Army at the end of the First World War?"  Yep, the answer is there-last statistic is for October 1918. With the time and energy to compute such statistics, how could the British possibly have lost the war?

My copy seems to have come from the RHBNC library?

[Guest]

I speak as a bookseller- with the hindsight of having had a death threat because of this conundrum.  The UK has a long tradition of there being no tax on books- it goes back to the Mid-Victorian Age, when such  taxes as there were disappeared as the result of a campaign against "Taxes on Knowledge"  Thus, most countries have a similar system that "books" do not carry taxes-or, if they are charged with a general level of VAT (or whatever its equivalent is in other EU or non-EU states), then it is usually at the lower (in the EC) of the 2 rates allowed -the upper and lower. In the UK, there is a significant difference between an item being "Vat Free" (that is,it is free from liability to VAT) and "zero rated" (that is, it is liable to VAT but it is set at the UK lower VAT rate of 0%)

   Problems arise when books come into a VAT regime country from outside- Does it attract VAT as an import???   In Holland,yes (Plenty of  experience on that).

The second problem with books coming in is that some countries are just plain awkward-  Top of my list is Canada. Books sent inwards where the Canadian rate of VAT(=GST) was zero were still stopped in Calgary and taxed because the ever-awkward-s*ds at  Canadian Customs looked at a box of old books and declared them not to be books but antiques and therefore taxable.

   As a  general rule,one should expect to pay VAT on an imported book at whatever the internal rate of VAT is in that country where you are- Any  difference between the two would, effectively, be a distortion of trade one way or the other. The good thing is that on most occasions, books go sailing through without charge regardless of what the local tax regime is. Its the occasional jobswortth and awkwardness that upsets.

   As it is, because books in the UK are zero-rated, then there should be no problem with VAT in any other EU state (at the moment) because the item  is considered to have been "taxed" already, albeit at a rate of zero actual charge-and therefore usually exempt under standard  international agreements regarding double taxation

 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

My copy seems to have come from the RHBNC library?

 

     Quite possible. Yours is likely to be a duplicate from when RH absorbed Bedford College and totally gutted its rather quaint old library at the top of Hampstead.I have bought books from Royal Holloway- it attempts to be a "steady state" library-one in,one out-and will look to discard books if there has been no borrowing for quite a time-their rationale was 7 years. Of course, the system is qualititavely bonkers as libraries should plan the spread of stock against future courses and demands as well, not just past use. It has quirks. An old friend was a Professor of Maths at RHBNC-as a keen collector of books relating to Ireland (He is Irish) he had borrowed a number of volumes of a chunky old series called "Calendar of State Papers Ireland"  out of interest. There are over 800 volumes of "Calendars" done by HMSO,mostly medieval records. The historians at RHBNC could not understand why these were junked for lack of use, while CSP Ireland remained-none of them had used the Irish stuff. It was the chance use by an amateur enthusiast that dictated why the library retained them.  Good luck with your one Alan- There is a much nicer copy sitting in the reserve stock of a library near me-and I know they are getting close to having a clear-out. They also have pretty good runs of the officials of both wars,civil and military- I can but hope and follow the late Shaw Taylor's advice-"Keep 'em peeled"

[GreyC]

Thank you for the explanation.

GreyC

[Dust Jacket Collector]

At least the garish green cover on the Stats book means I can always find it unlike some other books on my shelves which often disappear.

By the way I put the other Official History inscribed by Edmonds to Churchill - Military Ops : Italy, on the Signed Books & their inscriptions page but it passed by unnoticed. Pity, I thought it rather important.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, GreyC said:

Thank you for the explanation.

GreyC

 

   Most books sail through because it is not worth chasing the tax.  Problems come from the more expensive books- a customs declaration with a stated value  at a high-ish level may attract attention. A good tip is to figure out where the tax is lower- the country from where it is sent or where it is received. Thus, an expensive book from the UK to Germany- ask the vendor in the UK to include a VAT invoice, showing VAT has been charged-at £0.00. Should mean it does not get taxed again at the receiving end.

[GreyC]

!

GreyC

 

[barkalotloudly]

the only time i have ever been charged was due to a wrong description by the seller {and it has always proved to be a complete waste of time contacting the HM customs !}on and by the way i did notice and perused the copy of the signed Military operations Italy but as has been discussed often us booklovers are a dying breed !