COOK’S LOG AT AUCTION

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29384, 10 December 1960, Page 17

COOK’S LOG AT AUCTION

Surprise At High Price [From the London Correspondent of “The Press”] Collectors and dealers in Australians were astonished at the price paid at Christie’s on November 28 for the manuscript copy of Captain James Cook’s log for his first Pacific voyage in the Endeavour and the journal of his second voyage in the Resolution. The figure of £53.000 was paid by a dealer on behalf of an unknown client, widely assumed to be an American. After the sale, several persons with a likely interest in the manuscript said they had not bought it and that the price was many times higher than they were prepared to bid for it. One collector said he would have been prepared to pay much more for the original log. (The original of Cook’s diary of the first voyage was sold at Sotheby’s in 1923 to Australia for £5000.) Another dealer said that this price would influence the value of all Cook relics; it was amazingly high but anyone trying to collect Cook material in future would have to be prepared to pay much more. It was wrongly reported in the London press that the New Zealand Government was the unsuccessful underbidder for the manuscript. In fact the Government did not attempt to buy but, like all except two final bidders, dropped out very early in the race. It ended in bids of £lOOO.