Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-05-13
Paid Fifty Thousand Dollars
for Rare Edition of Bible

ONCE the announcement a few days
- ago that Henry E. Huntington Of
California, a nephew of the late Coils P.
Huntington. had purchased at the sale in
New York Of the library of the late
for $4,000 there has been renewed
lamentations at London. Paris and Ber-
lin over the unconscionable rapacity of
the American millionaires who are rob-
Ing Europe Of it's treasures Of art and
antiquity and even its treasures of liter
ature. There has also been some sarcas-
tic observations on the extravaganza of
Americans called forth by the fact that
Mr.. Huntington paid $4,000 for this
Bible, the highest price given for any
book at any sale in the history of the
world
In reply, Americans are saying some
thing about sour grapes and are asking
whether millionaires could make better
use of their money than to gather here
to make eventually accessible to a nation
because of its youth that can have ac-
cumulated few monuments of its own,
such monumental examples of the arts of
all the ages as 1t has heretofore been the
province Of governments to preserve in
the old world.
The development of public libraries in
this country has gradually narrowed the
field of private collectors to these recog-
nized masterpieces of rare examples of
bookmaking, that our public libraries
cannot yet afford to buy A carefully
chosen collection like that of Mr. Robert
noe or the wonderful library Of Mr. Nor
gan. is not likely to 0epreciate in value,
though even Mr.. Morgan would probably
hesitate to recommend rare books, at
current prices, as financial investment.
All the more honor to our American mil
liOnaires who put their money into things
Of beauty and Of worth without thought
Of getting 1t back except in the salts
faction of sharing in the best of the
worlds possessions.
After all the pleasure of collecting, of
any sort, is in the eagerness of pursuit
and acquisition or the satisfaction Of pos
session. 1t is very rarely that collecting
is profitable as an investment. A man
who collects books or prints or objects of
art in some special line is always aiming
at completeness. The items that he
needs to fill the gaps in his collection are
worth more to him than to any one else.
If two or three more are collecting in the
nately. But when the collection is
broken up. all the completeness and per-
lection of arrangement that gave 1t value
count for nothing. 1t is resolved into Its
constituent atoms. and the dealers pick
them up one by one, as bargains, to sell
at an advance to new collectors when the
same fashion IN collecting shall nave
come around again.
The man has meanwhile had his own
enjoyment from his collection, which
laust be his compensation, and his labor
has not been lost, because he has made
him. His own library goes to build up
many others.
Fifty thousand dollars does seem q very
large price to pay for a book. But il the
book is important and is the only one Of
it's kind available II is worth whatever a
collector can afford or mayt be willing to
pay for it. There is no mathematical
standard by which to gauge the pleasure
of unique possession. The Gutenberg
Bible purchased by Mr.. Huntingdon was
not quite unique but 1t was the only copy
likely to be available to a private COL
lector. and as there were several col
lectors able and willing to pay whatever
was necessary to secure it, II was worth
precisely what the most eager of them
would give for 1t.
While II IL impossible ever to fix exactly
the very beginning of any mechanical in
vention. II may be considered established
that Gutenberg was the first to make the
art Of printing from movable type q COM
plete success. The great Bible. to which