BOOKS AS AN INVESTMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1934, Page 17

BOOKS AS AN INVESTMENT

The recent statement made by Shane Leslie, Irish, poet and. biographer, in a lecture given at tho' University of Pennsylvania, "I know of twenty; Irish, families that were- saved by their libraries," seems to have occasioned surprise among tho uninitiated, -who look upon books as something to be read rather than to be used in. payment of rent, says the ".Christian Science Monitor." As a matter of fact, it is -well rocognised among book collectors that no investment is so sound or so~produetivo as that represented by a really rare book. Not accidentally have the great collections in America, been brought together by financial or industrial leaders rather than by scholars, nor lias it been merely tho fact that this book-collecting game is so expensive an adventure.thaj scholars.have been at a disadvantage 'in competing with men of wealth. Among the incentives that influenced such men as J. Pierpont Morgan or Henry E. Huntington to invest such gigantic sums in books was undoubtedly tho soundness of the investment. Winston-11. llagen, when admonished by his friends for investing so heavily in his library, retorted, "My volumes are worth .more than your bonds."

In 1847, James Lenox was looked upon as a jnad plunger even among fellow collectors when he paid 2500 dollars for tho first Gutenberg Bible- that came to America. In 1911 George D. Smith for.a timo lost his reputation as

a sagacious bookman when ho bid in for 50,000 dollars the Hoe copy of this volume which went into the Huntington collection. Fifteen years later, Dr. Eosenbach bought the Melk copy for 106,000 dollars, and immediately resold it to Mrs. Harkness for a price said to bo 126,000 dollars, to be placed in the Yale University Library. The- last time a Gutenberg Bible figured in front page news was when Dr. yollbehr paid the Abbey of St. Paul in Carinthia 360,000 dollars for the splendid copy on vellum which is now a part of the collection acquired a few years ago by the Library of Congress.

It would not be fair, however, to attribute only mercenary motives to the collectors of great libraries in America. It is interesting to follow tho^play of human instincts as demonstrated in these ♦collections: First, ' they , have served as an expression of the love of acquisition—a contest,' perhaps; of one wealthy buyer against another, which yielded a thrill lacking even in the successful merger of great industrial Organisations. Then, has comb the intangiblei* 'satisfaction of being the actual possessor of something unique— like an original manuscript of a famous book. Finally comes.thQ desire to pass on ono's porsonal pleasure to 'tho vast public, among whom are those who can study the collections with greater understanding, than the original owners, and who otherwise would have been denied contact with precious volumes.