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    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
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Rare Book Monthly

Articles - August - 2015 Issue

In The News: Tons of Old Books Thrown Away; Two Stolen Manuscripts Recovered

Hüseyin Sen receives his award (from Konya government website).

Libraries lose books, sometimes through theft, sometimes through carelessness, never for a good reason. A library in Thailand lost tons of books, quite literally, for the worst reason we've come across in a long time. The victim of this loss was Silpakorn University in Bangkok, and lest you think this is some obscure, mediocre school, it serves 28,000 students and holds the reputation as the top fine arts school in the country.

 

Their library is in the process of undergoing a significant renovation. It required temporarily removing many of their old books. Meanwhile, the library needed to dispose of some more recent books and magazines of little value. You can probably see where this is going. The library called up a local junk shop that advertised for waste paper to recycle. The librarians made a deal. They agreed to sell 3 tons of unwanted books to the junk dealer for 600 baht. That's not a lot of money. It translates to $175 in U. S. currency.

 

A few days later, the junk shop owner and four men arrived at the library with their truck. Most of the librarians were on lunch break at the time, but one official who was there pointed to a pile of books. They filled up the truck and took them back to the shop. Evidently, no one at the library noticed, at least not for several days.

 

Meanwhile, some of the university lecturers and collectors discovered the old books at the junk shop. They reportedly were incensed to think the university was selling its old books to such a place. Fortunately, they bought most of them up, though at five times the price the junk dealer paid for them. Not so fortunately, a few hundred pounds of the books had become soaked in a rain storm and had already been recycled. Arrangements are being made to sell the books back to the library, presumably for what the lecturers and collectors paid as their aim is to see them back where they belong.

 

The librarian responsible for making the sale turned in a letter of resignation but the university declined to accept it. The head of the library explained that this wouldn't solve anything and he wanted the librarians to all work together to prevent such problems from reoccurring. He asked people to sympathize with the librarians "because they also love these books." As for the junk dealer, he had a better excuse for not realizing the books were valuable and should not be recycled. "I didn't know they were rare books," he was quoted as saying. "I left school when I was in fourth grade."

 

 

 

A pair of very old manuscripts, stolen from a library in Turkey in 2000, were discovered at the University of Pennsylvania library and returned to their rightful owner. This positive conclusion came about through some thorough sleuthing by a student at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. This was one enormously lucky break for the Turkish library, which just serves to show how difficult tracking down stolen material can be. Another roughly 100 manuscripts stolen at that time are still missing.

 

In 2000, 103 manuscripts, 7 books, and 62 covers from other books were stolen from the Yusuf Aga Manuscript Library in the Central Turkish province of Konya. The reason the old covers were stolen is evidenced by this find. The thieves not only attempted to remove identifying markers from the manuscripts, they used the old covers to fashion new (yet old) covers for the manuscripts to better disguise them. These manuscripts were very old, dating back to the 13th century.

 

The two returned manuscripts were purchased by American collector Lawrence Schoenberg. Lawrence was a son of the noted composer and artist Arnold Schoenberg. He also was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a member of their Library Board of Overseers. Lawrence died last year. He gave his collection to the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Meanwhile, at the University of Utrecht, Hüseyin Sen was studying for his Ph. D. Sen is from Turkey and has a deep interest in old Turkish manuscripts. Medieval Arabic manuscripts are part of his studies at UU (if that's what they call the university). He was researching bird houses, which might seem like an obscure topic, but they were commonly found in mosques. In the back of his mind, he was aware of the earlier theft from the Konya library. When he came across a couple of old manuscripts contained in the Schoenberg collection at the University of Pennsylvania, they sounded familiar. He dug in deeper. He began comparing various points and reached the conclusion these must be among the manuscripts stolen from the Turkish library.

 

Sen knows Sare Davutoglu, wife of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. He sent her an email, which she forwarded to the Director of the Konya library. The identification was confirmed, and the manuscripts were returned by the University of Pennsylvania Library to their owner. Sen was rewarded with a plaque and thanks by the Konya Governor at a celebration in his honor.

 

Of course, this still leaves another hundred manuscripts missing, and if it takes a perfect storm of coincidences like this to find just two, it will be a long time coming before the rest are retrieved. The international nature of these thefts, and the obscurity of the items and their origin, gives a glimpse at just how difficult it is to stop the trafficking of stolen books and paper. Still, it must be done.


Posted On: 2015-08-01 12:45
User Name: scientiabk

The Lawrence Schoenberg in this story was NOT the son of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Arnold Schoenberg did have a son named Lawrence (Larry), who is still alive.

Malcolm Kottler, Scientia Books, ABAA ILAB


Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
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    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.

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