Featured Worthpoint request, and helluva thing

Responded to a local ad yesterday about some free books. Didn’t look up the address and went to pick them up today. On my way there they told me there was some left but that in between my initial contact and then the books had been picked over by others. I nearly turned around but was already ten mins into my thirty min drive and was curious. I got there and looked at the list of business’s by floor and saw the name of an antique book dealer. I had not realized what the source of the books was. So I go in and some of the books from the ad photo that I wanted are still there, plus a massive pile of foreign magazines. I took a few boxes full and went on my way. Brought a large two volume set inside with my lunch once I was home. The two volume set was on a collection of antique prints. It had a nice bookplate/ex-libris but I didn’t look close. I wanted to see some old prints. Flipped to the title page and was excited to see the books were published in the 1830’s. Flipped further ahead only to realize the books were just a comprehensive list of every print in the collection. Probably 1000 pages or more of just an index of the collection. No illustrations at all, not one. Still interesting but kind of a bummer. Still, they had great spines and would look excellent on a bookshelf of mine or someone else if no one was interested in the subject matter itself, so not a loss. Later in the day I decided to check out the bookplate. Much to my shock…….it is J.P. Morgan’s! There’s one in each volume. I get very excited about owning things that great collectors or great dealers owned at one point. If you just said someone famous owned something I wouldn’t care that much but if that person was a diehard collector it excites me. It’s like a portal into great collections of the past in a way. Tomorrow I’ll see if any of the other old books were owned by that great robber baron. I’m assuming the fact that these books had Morgan’s bookplate in them was missed by the dealer. Maybe they knew many decades ago when they acquired them and just forgot. They had probably been for sale for longer than I’ve been alive and no one ever noticed. I’m sure they aren’t worth a fortune but it’s a pretty neat thing thing to me. That being said I’d love to know what Worthpoint has up its sleeve in regards to the value of one if anyone can help. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/armorial-green-leather-gold-emboss-ex-218477314

 

$30 (2011)

 

Maybe you should contact the Morgan Library and Museum to see what they have to say about the catalog:
https://www.themorgan.org/collection

 

Gracias!!!

 

I was checking out the website yesterday. I’m sure they have many thousands of them on hand!

edit: or were you referring to the volumes and not the bookplates?

 

The volumes. Ask them about the books. Are they references to the Morgan collection, or more general references to prints?

 

I am sorry that you missed out on the others, what a pain in the a**. That said, as a book collector myself, in my case, arms & armour books, I am totally on board regards collecting books that have belonged to famous collectors or dealers. I have a fair few in my collection, and holding such a tome and wondering what the original owner thought as they held it and looked through it is a mesmerizing feeling!

 

Show us a title page.

 

They have nothing to do with Morgan’s collection other than the fact that the books were in his collection. They have to do with a renowned /historic collection of prints. https://books.google.com/books?id=s...=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Glad someone agrees! Even impressive local collections or historic local estates. I’ll always save at least one thing from a collection I was in awe of or families that were important to the area. I like the link to the home or auction I went to and immersed myself in their things for a day or days. I respect what it took to form these amazing lifelong collections I see and keeping at least one piece from each is like a cheesy way to pay homage to them. The really great collectors and dealers it’s inspiring to have one of their books or one of their pieces. Nice to kind of put yourself in their shoes like you said. I have a couple things that JFK owned that I suspect he may have looked at often. Those are good for inspiring what that must have felt like for him. Those were also amazingly missed by the auctioneer that sold them. They have giant tags from an important and very well publicized auction of his possessions in the back of them. I even found them in the catalog from that auction. The auction house I got them from just threw them in a lot that I got for relative peanuts. Not another sole saw them either, I got the lot below it’s opening bid if I recall correctly. So J.P. Morgan and JFK into my collection with no one else being the wiser. I’d have never thought it possible if it didn’t happen.

 

That's a clarification.

 

If you have a great interest in depictions of the historic figures of the UK and Europe on paper these volumes might be nice to have. Nice reference material in that respect. They are interesting to flip through for any real I collector I guess. I like that Sutherland forbid his collection to be broken up.

 

Apparently it's in the Bodleian in Oxford.

The catalog is currently available on AbeBooks being sold as individual volumes. The combined price is about $145 with volume two being the higher priced.

I don't know what difference in price the bookplate would make. The information contained is fairly esoteric. A touch of celebrity never hurts.

 

The books are rare but yeh not highly sought after I don’t imagine. The ones I got were gifted to some some stuffy sounding English institution by some fancy fella. That may help them but honestly I’ll probably hold onto them. I love the JPM connection and they look good on a shelf.

 

I am glad to hear I am not the only one that does this.

It has usually been a small trinket of some sort like some pretty seashells from someone who spent their childhood on an island in the Pacific or a pretty crystal trinket box. The only time I ever kept anything valuable was from an estate auction from about 15+ years ago. I had just about made up my mind to go back home because I had seen nothing that would make me stay. That was until I stepped out the backdoor & there was a flat of perfume bottles that contained a wonderful black & chrome DeVilbiss perfume dauber bottle.

It was one of the few times I held up my number & never lowered it until the auctioneer said sold. I don't remember what I paid for the box lot but it was much, much less than this bottle was worth & it is still in my collection along with the matching atomizer which I did not get for a reduced price.

 

Good for you. Sounds like a nice pair! Those are fun where you just know you’re taking it home no matter what. People start turning around and looking at who is so adamant. You want to just tell your competitor to give up because they aren’t getting it. Just wasting their time and your money. Part of the game though.

 

I have only done it maybe 3 or 4 times in the 20+ years I have been going to auctions & each time a perfume bottle was involved.

 

What can you say, you know what you like!