Rare Book Monthly
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Combination potato chip canister/burial urn.
3. Atlas der Krystallformen by Victor Goldschmidt, an 18-volume set by the man considered to be the father of modern geochemistry. $8,500.
2. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, a first edition, first issue with 22 etched plates by George Cruikshank. $11,388.
1. Etudes à l'Eau-Forte, a collection of 25 etchings by Francis Seymour Hayden. $17,216.
Finally, we have a story that does not relate to books, but is close enough for mention here as it does relate to printed ephemera. Specifically, we are talking about the Pringles can, home to those neatly stackable reconstituted potato chips. Pringles did for potato chips what McDonalds did for hamburgers. The designer of this ingenious packaging system, Frederic Baur, recently died at the age of 89, and in keeping with his wishes, part of his cremated remains were buried in a Pringles can. We are aware of no other coffins or burial urns which feature a printed label. So now Baur's neatly stacked, reconstituted remains can be found in one of his landmark cylinders, and all of us, worried about the high cost of burial, have a new, inexpensive option to consider.
