Children’s literature is an odd market.  Children (and I can attest to this) do not treat their books well.  A first-edition Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in boards is worth a lot.  In a pristine dust jacket, it’s worth more than ten times as much.  Nine-tenths of the value of the book is in its wrapper, which was intended to be ephemeral in the first place (dust jackets were a originally a convenience for shopkeepers, and it was expected that they would be thrown away when the book was put on a shelf.)  Now let’s say I have one very nice first printing of Alice without a dustjacket, and a later printing with the same dustjacket.  Tempting, no, to take the dj from the latter and put it on the former?  The euphemism in the rare books world for this practice is sophistication.  If you’re reading a book dealer’s catalogue, and it refers to a volume as a sophisticated copy, the dealer is not saying it’s astute or for sophisticated people.  He’s saying it’s faked.  It’s an old-time, honest dealer who will admit that, as the practice is frowned upon.  And it is, in general, very hard to detect.

Think that’s insane?  Quick: what’s the most valuable thing on the planet, by weight?  Silver?  Gold?  Platinum?  Saffron?  Uranium 235?  Locks of Lord Nelson’s hair?  No, it’s arguably postage stamp gum.  You know that “thin glutinous wash” (as Rowland Hill, the inventor of the postage stamp, described it) that’s supposed to be, essentially, licked off?  If it’s a relatively modern stamp, like Edwardian British Colonies, it contributes — as a rule of thumb — 95% of the value of the stamp.  If it’s a real classic?  Original gum (or “OG”, amusingly) can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  So why don’t people just paint on some gum?  People do.  All the time.  It’s called “regumming”, and most estimates (by the few people who will admit to knowing the price) put the practice at $5 per stamp.  This, also, is hard to prove.  You have to put the perforations of the stamp under a powerful microscope to see if there are any torn fibers with gum on them, which of course would be impossible in a normal stamp.  You have to have the perfs checked, all of them, by a trained expert with a microscope, who then vouches for the stamp’s integrity, frequently insuring his opinion with actual monetary guarantees if he’s proven wrong.  Who gives a shit?  Almost everyone.  No one buys a gummed stamp for more than $1000 these days without submitting it for “expertizing”.  For a cheap stamp, that will run you $35 per stamp, minimum, and take months — more and longer for pricey stamps.  There are even people — “nutters”, let’s say (there’s no official term) — who buy expensive stamps, have them professionally mounted and framed, and display them gum side out.

And you thought the fervor over uncreased tush tags was silly.

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:37:38 +0000
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