Rarest book?

[charlie2]

Two, I am led to believe, rarer Naval Ops map cases arrived today. *mas came early

Charlie

 

[GreyC]

Well done, Santa!

GreyC

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, GreyC said:

Well done, Santa!

GreyC

 

    Correction: Well done Santa's bank manager.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

4 hours ago, charlie2 said:

Two, I am led to believe, rarer Naval Ops map cases arrived today. *mas came early

Charlie

 

 

I believe most of the Second edition were lost in the Blitz.

[Guest]

Just now, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I believe most of the Second edition were lost in the Blitz.

 

    I think that is correct- My memory is that the second editions were put out through Longmans, who subsequently lost most of the balance of their stocks when they warehoused around Paternoster Square and Ave Maria Lane through blitz action. The other main losers were Oxford. Thus, a number of Oxford and Longmans titles from the late 1930s are uncommon for that reason-and,consequently, why a disproportionate number of those that do turn up are ex-lib-they were the main buyers on first publication. Reputedly, 6 million books incinerated there and it became deliberate policy during post-war City reconstruction not to allow such stocks of books in the area again.  The last major publisher I recollect that warehoused in the centre was Jock Murray, whose stock was in a warehouse at the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road until recently (ie when the last nice old Jock Murray died) There was something rather quaint when I was a student in being able to go to a publisher's warehouse in the centre and buy a book- the old fellows running these places were always kind in allowing a "trade discount" even though I was not trade-  eg George Bell and Son whose warehouse was right next to the LSE

[charlie2]

2 hours ago, GreyC said:

Well done, Santa!

GreyC

 

2 hours ago, voltaire60 said:

 

    Correction: Well done Santa's bank manager.

Yes well done Santa, and he did it without breaking the bank but seems to have ignored the rest of the letter I sent him. 

[GreyC]

I happen to know what he wrote you, as I got the same letter: "Don´t push your luck, son!" he wrote.

GreyC

 

[Guest]

14 hours ago, GreyC said:

I happen to know what he wrote you, as I got the same letter: "Don´t push your luck, son!" he wrote.

GreyC

 

 

    Reuters have just released a snap of  Santa for the Festive Season:

 

 

         Apparently, it shows him reading a unique copy of the "Official" on "Eastern Siberia"-having decided not to send it to any of you lot 

[charlie2]

19 minutes ago, voltaire60 said:

Apparently, it shows him reading a unique copy of the "Official" on "Eastern Siberia"-having decided not to send it to any of you lot 

Oh well, maybe next year.

 

15 hours ago, GreyC said:

I happen to know what he wrote you, as I got the same letter: "Don´t push your luck, son!" he wrote.

GreyC

 

And to make matters worse it was a cheap copy of the letter I got last year and I had to pay the excess postage on it.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

1 hour ago, voltaire60 said:

 

    Reuters have just released a snap of  Santa for the Festive Season:

 

 

         Apparently, it shows him reading a unique copy of the "Official" on "Eastern Siberia"-having decided not to send it to any of you lot 

If he persists in flattening it out like that he’ll damage the spine! Looks more substantial than I’d expected.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

If he persists in flattening it out like that he’ll damage the spine!

 

   Not if he followed BL guidance on opening books.which I feel sure he did.  He is probably pondering where he put the map case which came with the text volume.......

[emrezmen]

I am not sure if this is the correct place to make a request but I'm after a rare book: Der Krieg in den türkischen Gewässern by Hermann Lorey. Is there anybody who would be willing to share a PDF file with me?

 

Thanks in advance.

[charlie2]

1 hour ago, emrezmen said:

I am not sure if this is the correct place to make a request but I'm after a rare book: Der Krieg in den türkischen Gewässern by Hermann Lorey. Is there anybody who would be willing to share a PDF file with me?

 

Thanks in advance.

There are two volumes - die Mittelmeer Division and der Kampf um die Meerengen - and as far as I am aware neither have been digitized. If you just want a look up send me a pm.

edit - there are plenty for sale but they are not the cheapest books on the market

 

https://www.booklooker.de/Bücher/Angebote/titel=Der+Krieg+in+den+türkischen+Gewässern
 

Charlie

Edited 23 December , 2020 by charlie2

[Dust Jacket Collector]

A brief but excellent Battery history privately published in 1926. Extremely scarce. In fact Tom D tells me he’s never seen a copy so it must be. Again I’ve benefited from the IWMs policy of flogging off all their rare books. Quite a fragile item, so if they have retained a copy they’d better take care of it.

One of the interesting facts given is that if all the shells they’d fired were placed end to end they’d stretch for 7.57 miles!

[David Filsell]

DJC

Delighted you have bought it. However, and as ever,  the fact that the book was "flogged off" it underlines the incompetence and arrogance of the IWM.  Even if they still have another copy ishould have been kept in their reserve collection. The arrogance of the IWM seems total.

Regards

David

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

A brief but excellent Battery history privately published in 1926. Extremely scarce. In fact Tom D tells me he’s never seen a copy so it must be. Again I’ve benefited from the IWMs policy of flogging off all their rare books. Quite a fragile item, so if they have retained a copy they’d better take care of it.

One of the interesting facts given is that if all the shells they’d fired were placed end to end they’d stretch for 7.57 miles!

 

      A nice addition (and I though "Hampstead Heavies" was another name for Foxtons!).  Seriously-  I note there is a website for the Hampstead Heavies but it is a little curious that the compiler-on the face of it-seems unaware of it-Might a zap via Tinternet to the site be the act of a Good Samaritan?

[Dust Jacket Collector]

6 hours ago, voltaire60 said:

 

      A nice addition (and I though "Hampstead Heavies" was another name for Foxtons!).  Seriously-  I note there is a website for the Hampstead Heavies but it is a little curious that the compiler-on the face of it-seems unaware of it-Might a zap via Tinternet to the site be the act of a Good Samaritan?

I found that site earlier & if you look deeper into it you’ll find a page on this book and its author. The fellow who runs the site also seems to have produced a facsimile edition of the book.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I found that site earlier & if you look deeper into it you’ll find a page on this book and its author. The fellow who runs the site also seems to have produced a facsimile edition of the book.

 

   Well spotted- I couldnt see it!!  

[Guest]

13 hours ago, David Filsell said:

DJC

Delighted you have bought it. However, and as ever,  the fact that the book was "flogged off" it underlines the incompetence and arrogance of the IWM.  Even if they still have another copy ishould have been kept in their reserve collection. The arrogance of the IWM seems total.

Regards

David

 

     Without going back in detail, I recollect that IWM's defence at the time of these sales was that ,yes, they may indeed have a "reserve" copy but what they were flogging off was the third,fourth,fifth,etc copies-  That because of donations of the same stuff over the decades,no purpose was served in keeping multiples which no-one would ever see,let alone use. There was some further debate about how much effort IWM had put in to offering spare materials to other institutions-which would help "spread the good word" but it seemed there was not much- some trench map,etc transferred to CWGC in Maidenhead. In fairness,IWM did have a lot of irrelevant crud as well 

    I will repeat one concern- the cutbacks at IWM?  How have they impacted on "collection development"of all the stuff published and produced during and around the centennial years. IWM's strength was capturing the ephemeral and local stuff from the start. But what of it's modern equivalents?

 

 

 

[David Filsell]

Mr V

Thanks for your reply. As an ex media relations man I feel a they would say that wouldn't they coming on somehow. At least one of their former management committee told me how relived he felt when his term was over!

Regards

David

[MartH]

7 hours ago, voltaire60 said:

 Without going back in detail, I recollect that IWM's defence at the time of these sales was that ,yes, they may indeed have a "reserve" copy but what they were flogging off was the third,fourth,fifth,etc copies-  That because of donations of the same stuff over the decades,no purpose was served in keeping multiples which no-one would ever see,let alone use. There was some further debate about how much effort IWM had put in to offering spare materials to other institutions-which would help "spread the good word" but it seemed there was not much- some trench map,etc transferred to CWGC in Maidenhead. In fairness,IWM did have a lot of irrelevant crud as well 

    I will repeat one concern- the cutbacks at IWM?  How have they impacted on "collection development"of all the stuff published and produced during and around the centennial years. IWM's strength was capturing the ephemeral and local stuff from the start. But what of it's modern equivalents?

 

This I have to say is B*******,  (the message, not the messenger)  of example the reference set of the Official History of Munitions is part reprints and part originals (the first series), and yet I have some of these volumes, ,originals deposed by the IWM. They flogged the first copies. 

[Guest]

Phew!! 

1 hour ago, MartH said:

 

This I have to say is B*******,  (the message, not the messenger)  of example the reference set of the Official History of Munitions is part reprints and part originals (the first series), and yet I have some of these volumes, ,originals deposed by the IWM. They flogged the first copies. 

 

    After Big Ben struck 13, then the next most unlikely occurrence was Your Humble being singled out as "Fidei Defensor" for the Imperial War Museum!!     Yes, Mart- very much right as a general theme-that IWM has been systematically neglecting it's library bit-by-bit as well. The first sign of these things is when new acquisitions get a bit dodgy- hence my expressed apprehensions about all the stuff published ephemerally during the centennial years-  The next thing to go is bindings-  books are in a library to get used and those at IWM certainly take a thumping-and,at first sight, I might agree with you.  I was disappointed in recent years at just how shabby the reference books in the library reading room looked. OK, it begs the question,say, about the wall of "regimentals"-  Of use by Joe Public-Yes. Knackered? Yes(Me and the books!!)  And,as collector's items-as regimentals usually are- neither you nor I would touch them due to condition.

    Therein lies the rub.  I have purchased books from institutional libraries on many,many occasions-and the logic  is this. A library is gifted a mint copy of a book it already has- and the one of the shelves is well-used, covered in library stamps and rebound in ugly library cloth. Which one does the library sell off?  Well, the logic is that you sell the one in better condition.  The shelf copy is already knackered and worn but is still in normal shelf-life condition. If that was sold it would fetch little-Thus,keep using that one and sell off the mint one for more money- it seems counter-intuitive but that is the reality. And as most libraries have become "steady state" -that is, stay at the same size-something comes in,something must go out- then the notion of keeping multiples just in case the first copy wears out in 50 years time-well, that's gone out of the window. So-literally "bottom-line" the better copies are sold off because the (still quite serviceable) library shelf copies would fetch very little.

 (I have deliberately not collected Great War books while doing my local Roll-save a few day-to-day essentials- Charles Messenger's "Call To Arms" for example- but do have a few books tucked away from bookselling days that I never got round to processing-Oh well, looks like I had better keep y set of Min.Munitions all in their original soft card wrappers....belonged to someone called "Maurice Hankey" as well. )

   My apologies if I have inadvertently acted as "Champion of England" for IWM. Certainly not intended. I  hope your lovely mutt is still prospering  -Please indulge him with a dog treat-he looks a little confused by all of this!!

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I take your point, but the original controversy arose around the fact that the IWM were seemingly doing just the opposite. Rather than trying to get the best price for their duplicates they decided to dump them en masse and unannounced with a relatively minor auction house.

I agree, selling the better copies to get the better price would make sense if they were actually doing that. In my, extremely limited, experience, (Brighton libraries), they just want to get rid of the books as quickly as possible regardless of price.

I used to think maybe I should leave my collection to a library but I suspect they’d come in by the front door and move swiftly to the skip at the back!

(Oh look, that makes 1500 posts - a minor milestone).

[Guest]

   I do have knowledge of both the Brighton and IWM sales.  As you know, IWM had tried to dump the whole of their library but at some stage, KIng's College London had backed out-as the books,overall, were in too poor condition and the stock would cost too much to get back to use in toto.  IWM then dumped a lot of stuff-  I think we both remember the  debate about that- 15, 000 "items"- an "item" being,very misleadingly, a single entry on the catalogue not a single book-so that the wall full of battered army lists that ended up in a skip  at Duxford only counted as one "item" And IWM got round restrictions (Museums Association,etc) by redefining books as not being "objects" in museum terms and outside the safeguarding and retention rules for cultural objects-a very shabby episode.

    The stuff that IWM sold against the hammer  went to Peacocks in Bedford because several other auctioneers turned it down- Peacocks said Yes because they had done unexpectedly well when a local academic library came their way after Cheffins  in Cambridge turned it down (The books of Sir James Holt- Jim Holt was a mediaevalist who spent a chunk of his long retirement buying books- I bought some stuff there). Thereafter, Peacocks decided they were going to be provincial book specialist auctioneers. With very mixed results.

   Brighton was a little different- a very strong provincial reference library with a lot of good old-time books in quite good condition.  A small tranche-as you will know-went to Colin Page but John Losska told me that Brighton apparatchiks were upset because they got a number of angry people then complaining about the sell-off of books. Thus, when it came to getting rid of a large amount of good cloth books of yesteryear in good condition, then it was a botch-up. Brighton wanted the stuff out of sight-and called in  Francis Edward/Quinto from Hay-on Wye simply so the stuff would "disappear" and there would be no local complaints as before.  Greg Coombes from Francis Edwards told me later that he was rather astonished -a lot of good quality books for very,very little as the Brighton folk made it very clear that they they were not interested in tip-top price as long as Francis Edwards/Quinto could just get the stuff away from Brighton as quickly and quietly as possible-which Greg did with a large smile on his face all the way back to Hay. Brighton also did not realise that Greg's first way of selling the stuff was to put it in their Quinto shop in the Charing Cross Road- As I liked dreary old time history I bought a large number of publications- the Economic and Social History of the World War Series -of the Carnegie Endowment which had been given to Brighton in the Twenties and Thirties and never used-  It is a moot point as to whether the intellectual and cultural life of Brighton was seriously impaired by the good citizens of Brighton not having access to the Carnegie volumes on the effects of the war on Peru or Iceland!!

 

[barkalotloudly]

Went to the Norwich library to ask about the great war official history  only to be told "we got rid of it some time ago" so i went and purchased my own !the last place my books will end up when i depart this mortal coil will be a library !  

I always ponder on the  memorial registers i purchased {the only copies i would imagine }