Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American Libraries
TV News
Understanding 9/11tv Moons Rare Books CSPAN August 19, 2017 6:38pm-6:49pm EDT
6:38 pm
the left of course does as well. it's a state where there's so much action and so much activity, so much energy. i think for that reason it can be tiring, it couldn't be exhaustive. trying to figure out what the legislature is doing and not doing and there are all kinds of problems here but problems are not it's a state that looks to me most of the time forward, sometimes not that it's a state that looks to move and never rest on its laurels. you know, it's a pretty exciting place to be.
6:39 pm
>> i've been collecting rare books for the past 30 years. i decided to relocate to provo after selling my book shop in dallas which also sold new books and the past 10 to 15 years the sale of books is really suffered with the advent of e-books and everything going digital but what i found is the interest in rare books has increased. my shop right now there are about 1000 books but in my inventory there are about 5000 books per day rotate books through here and i specialize in four different areas. i specialize in rare bibles, bible's from the past 70 years. being in utah i specialize in early mormon books, classic literature and early american history. one of the items i enjoy click in our bibles or religious text that belong to well-known historical figures and being
6:40 pm
from utah one of the more popular items that i like to show people as brigham young's copy of the "book of mormon"'s. it's housed in the most protect the clamshell but this is according to family tradition this is the copy of the "book of mormon"'s on brigham young's nightstand when he died in 1877 and if you open it up to the title page you can see brigham young's signature. another one of my, i enjoy early american history and this is really one of the most important books printed in the america pre-1800 it's an original copy of thomas paine's common sense which was printed in philadelphia. it was on third street in philadelphia and if you go there today you will see a brass sign saying players -- here's where
6:41 pm
commonsense common sense was printed january 9, 1776. there is a little pamphlet. it's sewn together in it's quite rare and it was printed three times in january 1776 and it's a very interesting story because thomas paine went to robert belle and wanted to have this printed and he wanted the proceeds to buy the soldiers mittens. well, after it went through three printings they had a falling out so thomas paine about -- he lowered the price and said anybody can printed and that's the reason the book is so well-known imprinted and to this day has the designation of having the highest number of books ever printed in america. my favorite find in the past year is a bible that belonged to the man who wrote the "lord of the rings". i have j.r. tolkien's copy of
6:42 pm
the bible. i had a nice protected case made for it but he had a very simple bible. he was printed in 1947 and it was in the middle of writing "lord of the rings", he was writing "lord of the rings" in 1937 to 1954 and you can see his beautiful well-known recognizable signature on the front but what most interests me about this book is the fact that he annotated this book and made comments in the margins and here in the last page of john you can see made comments comparing it to seven different versions of the bible. this is a better translation of this than the original greek and so j.r. tolkien's bible, the one he had while he was writing "lord of the rings".
6:43 pm
1000 books in here are worth over 10 million and actually there are few books worth over 1 million apiece although i have books as low as $100 but that's kind of the starting level for the books that i have. what i enjoy so much about the rare books is the hunt. it's a treasure hunt. it's finding them and also realizing all of these books are different. they have a different feel, a different look and offering a different story depending on who owned the books that added the story within a story. this is the perfect place to keep these books because it's fireproof and humidity controlled and there is no uv light. this little book has a big story
6:44 pm
but if you are looking at it you will see this as something that could be overlooked unless you understand what the symbol is. this little book has a great story but you have to know history. you have to understand the history of this time period to understand who owned this book so you almost have to do detective work. now, to determine who owned this book you look at this and when you see this you see a crown so that makes you think of royalty. okay, well now you see the fleur-de-lis and that's french royalty but why do you see the two sides? this is because this person was married so this would the a queen's copy. the king at the time was louis the 16th. this is the ceo of marie antoinette and this is in latin.
6:45 pm
you may not recognize the book and you may overlook that but if you know what marie antoinette seel looked like you'd be able to identify the data. there were very few books of hers that survived in private hands because when she was executed for library was so absorbed into the french national library. this was a little book she carried with her and she would have had more than one. this is something that each year they were given new copies and that's why she could have given this copy away and that's why it's currently not in the french national library. finally another fun book i have is a shakespeare book. it's quite rare. shakespeare died in 1616 and in 1623 his complete works were first printed and then again in 1632 and 1664 in 1685. only 250 of each of these copies has survived so there are maybe
6:46 pm
1000 copies in the world. of the 1000 the vast majority, over 90% that i have, 1685 and even before you open the book you know that look has a story to tell. it's a stunning binding with working-class -- clasps. but it's the complete works of shakespeare done in 1685 and i haven't opened to romeo and julia. i will continue to collect books for the rest of my life. i have had people ask me when are you going to retire? what you going to do? i marte doing it. i can think of anything i would rather do than travel around tracking down rare books. i enjoy these books.
6:47 pm
people ask, do you read them? absolutely. you never know if one of the earlier versions is made in the actions that steadily increases the value of the book or has added interest to the story behind the book so i will always do this. i never get tired of it. i love sharing stories with old and young and i look forward to it every day. bookshops have been closing in record numbers. national chains are closing down 15 years ago i knew the owners of about three and book stores. 250 of those so close just in the past 15 years so it's important for these stores to continue to survive. they add character to the local community. it's a place, a meeting place for people and to keep history alive.
6:48 pm
by these bookshops continuing to be in existence. >> our encore presentation of some of the stops along the c-span cities tours from this past year continues as we take you to pittsburgh, pennsylvania. >> when i left my mother's house i went into that community and learned what it meant to be a man. there were stores and shops along the avenue. they are not there anymore. the discrimination they faced was from the darker skinned students who chased the kids home after school calling them cracker in this and then they come flying up the street. there was a gate there in that would stop the kids. one day their mother daisy told this
131 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CSPAN2
Television Archive 
Television Archive News Search Service 
Uploaded by TV Archive on
