More Very Expensive Used Books

    My efforts to convince people (especially those who work in libraries) that printed books are still worth some attention, were last displayed in the post about "Very Expensive Used Books." In it, a used copy of Gone With the Wind was reported to have been purchased for $25,000, not a bad price, given that literary critics didn't particularly like it, and now there are many critical of it for other reasons.
   The book above was just sold for $85,620, which is nothing to brag about since another first edition of the same book went for $471,000 in 2021. But, it is interesting that the one just sold was a used library book.

The Weeding of Books
  Librarians are discarding old books for many reasons. In the public libraries, one of them is to make room for the homeless, and in the university close by, it is to make space for students who, I gather, are not much interested in printed books. But, in both the public libraries and the university ones, care should be taken and weeding done with caution. Be more careful than even the gardener.
   The inside of the $85,620 used library book is shown above and reveals that "it was borrowed 27 times between December 15, 1997 and October 12,1999 before it was withdrawn from service." I am not sure what happened after that, but I am pretty sure that the Edinburgh Public Library did not get any of the $85,620.

Sources:

   The Potter book was listed by AbeBooks as one of their "Most Expensive Sales 2023."
The book was sold by First and Fine in Shropshire and information related to its purchase is found here. 

  As the illustration above indicates again, printed books can be valuable even in the United States. It is one of many from Raptis Rare Books in Palm Beach, but I doubt that there have been many shoppers visit it from Mar-a-Lago, close by. 

CANCON:
  As luck would have it, for those trying to make the case for printed books, this showed up on Feb. 17, 2024 in the Vancouver Sun. Dr. Vogrincic buys. "rare old medical books" and he bought this, "personal, annotated copy of Andreas Vesalius’s masterwork on anatomy de Humani Corporis Fabrica, printed in 1555." He paid less than $20,000 Canadian back in 2007. Once he realized the true value of the book, he lent it to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library for safe keeping. 

The book "was purchased by the University of Louvain in Belgium, which Vesalius had attended." It will probably be found in their library.

Some Books Are Still Valuable

 

 I have generally failed in my mission to convince university librarians to keep a few books in the place. I hope, however, they at least examine them carefully before discarding them. There are still some readers or, perhaps investors, who are willing to pay a lot for them. 

  I mentioned this back in November in "Very Expensive Used Books", when someone paid $25,000 for a copy of Gone With the Wind. It didn't even make the "Top Ten" list of the "Most Expensive Sales in 2022", which is now available on Abe Books. Click on that link to get more information. It is where the image above is found. Here is the basic list:

“I Quattro Libri dell Architettura” [Four Books of Architecture] (first edition, 1570), by Andrea Palladio: $57,750.

“Cook’s Voyages” (first edition, nine vols., 1773-84), by John Hawkesworth: $50,000.

“How to Trade in Stocks” (first edition, 1940), signed by the author, Jesse Livermore: $40,000.

“Cantique des Cantiques de Salomon” [Song of Solomon] (printed on vellum, 1931), wood engravings by Eric Gill: $35,000

“The Time Machine” (first edition, 1895), signed by the author, H.G. Wells: $30,500

“The Tour of the World in 80 Days” (1883), a copy once owned by Stephen King’s grandmother, with a note by the author, Jules Verne: $30,000

“Hinterlassene Werke Des Generals Carl Von Clausewitz” [The Surviving Works of General Carl Von Clausewitz] (10 vols, 1832-7), by Prussian general Carl Von Clausewitz: $27,750

“The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians” (1944), signed by the author, Aleister Crowley: $27,500.

“Hydrodynamica, sive De Viribus et Motibus Fluidorum Commentarii” [Hydrodynamics, or commentaries on the forces and motions of fluids]  (1738), by Daniel Bernoulli: $25,000.

“Les Vitraux” [Stained Glass] (1973), 24 loose color lithographs, each signed and numbered by the artist, Salvador Dalí: $25,000.

The Bonus
   The unappealing business book pictured, is not the first such book to be found among the most valuable ones. See my post from earlier in the year: "Valuable Business Books."