Anyone Heard These Stories?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Max,
Many good questions. First, the inventory from 1922 is available periodically in the book trade; I have a copy. It usually sells for a few hundred dollars. The book the library has of the missing inventory I believe is just a single copy that is for their use and visitors of the collection only. I was there recently researching something (which will occupy page one of my March catalog) and the librarian who was helping me pulled out the "other" book, so there didn't seem to be any great secret that most of the best material is long gone. The law is the same everywhere- no one legally has title to any stolen material, but it is clear that the library has minimal interest in trying to recover anything unless it walked itself back through the door. Some of the photography has a library stamp on the back, but these can be removed to look like scrapbook damage. Some were never stamped. I think unfortunately most library collections get pillaged over time. A couple of years ago I tried to buy a scrapbook from a family that was filled with thousands of 19th century cigarette cards, among them nearly 200 Old Judge baseball, plus Buchner's , A & G, etc. Because the family was well-to-do, they told me they wished to donate it to a library so that others could enjoy it. I tried to explain to them the extant that others will in fact enjoy it: that the harsh reality is the better OJ's will ultimately be pilfered. I think every museum and library has faced the same dilemma by letting the public view things that are small and valuable (I don't think any pianos have been taken from the Metropolitan Museum's rare instrument collection).