Here's a nice story on the Fox News Page, entitled Man Finds 188-Year-Old Bible in Dump Bin. The story explains how an electrician by the name of Michael Hoskins found several boxes of old books at the dump near Danville, VA. Upon looking through he found an old Bible, a King James Bible dated from 1818 and belonged to the Issac Enoch Family (having various family notations on the inside pages, a very common practice for family Bibles).
The story explains that he is now getting offers in the $900 range for the Bible. The story quotes Hoskins as saying his research shows that it was printed in Pittsburgh and that there are less than "a half dozen" of this Bible in existence. The Bible has some level of damage from water and some fire damage. Hoskins adds this ephemeral statement that, "I was always told a Bible wouldn't burn and have seen it before in other church and house fires."
Hoskins is determined to hold onto the Bible for a better price. "No, this Bible has made it through a lot. I am going to hold on to it for now. I will sell for the right price, but $900 is not realistic, not with only six of them left in existence."
Well, as a librarian these kinds of stories always peak my interest. It is a cute story with a little human interest, but it would have been nice if the reporter (obviously a very novice AP reporter, the story is not very well written or researched) had included some useful information or perhaps gotten some expert information to include. First of all to say that Hoskins' research has shown anything is only valid if he has some expertise in old rare Bibles (which he obviously doesn't). To say that there are only six or so left in existence, makes it sound like there are only 6 or so King James Bibles that old left in existence. If that's the case I have all the others in my library!
The truth is there are probably more like 6,000 in existence just from the year 1818. Bibles were produced in rather large numbers in that era in America and virtually every family had at least one. Now it may be that there are only six or so left from that particular publisher (the publisher is not named), but I'm not sure how that could possibly be determined with any certainty. Old family Bibles are quite numerous and are generally not very valuable to collectors or book dealers. The way they obtain monetary value would be (1) it belonged to an important or significant family; (2) there are notations in the Bible from the owners that would be of historical interest; (3) sometimes the printing will make the value increase, for instance if there hand colored engravings (drawings or maps) or the engravings are otherwise rare and noteworthy; or (4) if the printer was a noted individual or if the process itself (type of paper, cover, gilding, etc.) was particularly noteworthy. If there are valuable engravings or colored work, the pages are often just be removed and sold individually.
Mr. Hoskins did find a descendant of Issac Enoch, made copies of the family information in the and sent it along. This apparently helped fill in some family history for them and that was a nice thing to do. But if Mr. Hoskins expects to make a financial killing on his find, I fear he will be rather disappointed.
Posted by Narnia3 at July 29, 2006 12:05 PM | TrackBack