"Only known copy"

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Posted By: Max Weder

Rather than hijack's the thread with Dan's post about the "only [other] known copy" of Gus Green's book, I thought I might offer a few comments.

"only known copy" is often stated by rare book sellers with respect to copies in the OCLC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCLC

Dan, I'm not sure where you picked up your reference, but if a book was published in three editions, I would venture that there are still a number of copies still around.

I have seen references to "only one copy listed in the OCLC", and I have been staring at two copies of the same book on my bookshelf. I believe the OCLC only categorizes books in libraries, so it wouldn't have details of the holdings in private libaries.

The rare book world and the sports memorabilia world don't often intersect, and each seemingly knows little about the other. There is one on-line bookseller who in his listing for Anson, A Ballplayer's Career, notes " This is a much nicer copy than the three others that have appeared at auction in the past quarter century". This description has been up for at least 5 years, in which time I have seen at least 25 copies of this book offered on ebay and an equal number in the various memorabilia auctions.

That said, in 20 or so years of book collecting, I haven't seen the Green book offered (or at least I can't remember). Perhaps Barry has seen it.

Max