In The News: Burned Books, George Washington Baseball Cards, and the Alibris Nickel
- By Michael Stillman
Artist and book burning protestor Charles Merrill, from his website.
By Michael Stillman
Artist Charles Merrill recently announced that he had burned a valuable rare manuscript copy of the Koran. No stranger to controversy, Merrill had previously taken a pair of scissors and black marker to a copy of the Bible to express his displeasure. If nothing else, he believes in treating religions equally.
In a press release, Merrill stated, "The purpose of editing and burning Abrahamic Holy Books is to eliminate homophobic hate. Both ancient books are terrorist manuals." Merrill is an acknowledged homosexual and avowed atheist, which probably didn't make him popular among his North Carolina neighbors. Among his previous means of protest were failing to pay taxes on the ground that the tax code is discriminatory, it failing to offer gay couples the tax benefits of marriage. Of course failing to pay taxes is a universal form of protest. Many people, especially those paid in cash, regularly protest in this manner.
The case is somewhat reminiscent of the Kansas City bookseller who protested the decline in reading by burning books. However, those were books of little to no economic value, being ones he could not sell, nor even give away. Merrill's Koran was valued, according to Merrill, at $60,000. Evidently, he could afford such an expensive protest. He described himself as a "self-made millionaire," but it probably didn't hurt that his cousin was co-founder of brokerage Merrill Lynch, or that his late wife, Evangeline Johnson Merrill, was the only daughter of the founder of pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson. The rare Koran was said to have been given to her in the 1950s by the late King of Jordan.
Speaking of the Kansas City bookseller, Prospero's Books held its second book burning in September. This was reportedly meant to once again protest the decline in reading. There were no $60,000 books in this collection. These were books that could not even be given away. Instead of just quietly tossing the books out, as many sellers do, Prospero's attempted to generate attention to a cause (and perhaps their business) by the use of a dramatic protest, one with undertones of uglier events. Book burnings are generally associated with causes other than promoting literacy. In fact, they are generally associated with the exact opposite. It's like watching a group of protestors goose-stepping in unison in a protest for peace. The cause may be noble, but the form of protest makes your flesh crawl.
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In The News: Burned Books, George Washington Baseball Cards, and the Alibris Nickel
- By Michael Stillman
George Washington “baseball” card offered on eBay.
You may have missed it, as there was no accompanying fanfare, but the Alibris nickel quietly faded into oblivion sometime recently. You may recall that Alibris always cut a nickel off the price of books listed on their site. This is the old marketing strategy used to sell gasoline and other products. $2.99 9/10ths appears to consumers to be significantly less than $3.00 per gallon. The book posted for $5.00 elsewhere would be $4.95 on Alibris. The $10 book would be $9.95, the $25,000 book $24,999.95. If nothing else, it gave Alibris first listing on the websites that search multiple listing sites for books. However, it must not have made a noticeable difference in sales, or at least not enough to be worth the lost five cents of revenue on every copy. Alibris made no announcement, so we do not know why the "discount" was dropped, but one can guess that they would not have made the change if the lost nickel increased sales.
One of the stranger pieces of printed, collectible ephemera showed up on eBay recently. Sports cards can be quite valuable, as anyone who ever wished to purchase an early Honus Wagner can attest. However, this was a more unusual baseball card. After all, at least Wagner played the game. This was a George Washington baseball card, which anyone familiar with the chronology of baseball and George Washington will quickly realize is logically impossible. Washington died two decades before Abner Doubleday was born. It's possible, had they overlapped, Washington would have been a great pitcher or powerful hitter. He was certainly a great general and president. Nevertheless, greatness in other fields does not always translate to baseball, as Michael Jordan's baseball career established.
This card was produced by Allen and Ginter, a division of baseball card magnate Topps, Inc. They are the ones who printed the baseball cards you remember from your youth, the ones with baseball players on them. The Allen and Ginter division has printed a series of classic cards, ones meant to look like the old baseball cards of the late 19th century. However, they have added a few surprises, including notable people from other sports, and a few from professions outside of the world of games. Like presidents.
The Washington card, however, is unusual even by their standards. Just three were printed, and each has embedded in it a strand of Washington's hair. Reportedly, Topps purchased three strands of Washington's hair from a hair collector, and inserted them in the cards. No price was given, but Washington's hair sells for a premium (like real estate, they are no longer making any). When the first of these cards surfaced and was placed on eBay, it was quickly bid up into the thousands of dollars.
Among the reactions generated by this card were "weird" and "gross." The owner reported one person wanted to buy it so he could clone Washington. This is the best idea we have heard in a long time. Can you imagine a President George W. we can all agree upon? Better yet, can you imagine a president saying, "I cannot tell a lie" without telling one? A second George Washington would be a far greater contribution to humanity than another Dolly the Sheep. Still, it is dubious that hair in baseball cards is quite in keeping with the dignity of the man. Perhaps Topps should have printed a Millard Fillmore card, he being more accustomed to presidential ridicule than the esteemed Washington.
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In The News: Burned Books, George Washington Baseball Cards, and the Alibris Nickel
- By Michael Stillman
A first edition Book of Mormon sold for over $100,000.00
Another surprising auction took place in upstate New York two weeks ago. A first edition of the Book of Mormon was discovered in an attic of a house being cleared out near Joseph's Smith's original homestead in Palmyra. The copy was unrestored and in its original binding. While these first editions are not rare, perhaps 10% of the original print run of 5,000 still extant, they have become highly collectible. Usually, they end up at only the largest auction houses, or sold privately by major booksellers. However, this one went up for sale at the Hessney Auction in Geneva, New York, a town with a population of 14,000 (Geneva is no closer to New York City than is the state of Virginia).
The book ended up with Hessney as they had been called on to clean out the home of an older man who was moving out. It was found at the bottom of a box of books of considerably less value. However, while the auction house and its location may be obscure, the major collectors did not miss the opportunity. Bids came in by phone with the undisclosed winner paying $105,600 all in. That is if anything on the high side of what would be anticipated for this highly collectible first edition.
Finally, we note that Biblio.com, the third largest of the used book sites has made a $15,000 contribution, and pledged physical assistance to its BiblioWorks charitable organization. BiblioWorks has been providing assistance in bringing libraries and literacy to some of the poorer regions of Bolivia, along with aid closer to its home base in North Carolina. Such good works reflect well on the book trade as a whole, and Biblio deserves our thanks for representing us so positively.
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