RARE BOOK SECRETS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1923, Page 4

RARE B OOK SECRETS.

For the Mazariii Bible, Lfl.bUO ; 1M.890 for the Latin Vulgate; 1td,30.) lor a book printed by Caxton ; LI,GOD ft.r hi copy of Burns’s poems—these were the purchases made at a sale of rare hooks at .Sotheby's, New Bondstreet, W., by the well-known American expert buyer, Mr Philip M. Rosenliiteh, this week.

Mr Rosenbach ami his brother operate from New York nml Philadelphia, where they have a remarkable salon ol line arts in which fountains plav in a setting of precious hooks, furniture, and pictures, and ■'Philip 11” spends much of his time in going about the world in quest of library treasures. In this oounlrv alone he bought hooks to the value of LlOO.flflO during the first six months of this year.

"We must spend three-quarters of tt million pounds a year on various items”—he is fond of the word “items”—lie told mo. Mr Roseiihiieh is a rather short, sioutish man,, who wears big goldrimmed' glasses, tt thick moustache, anti talks willt the decisiveness of one who is sure of himself and ids facts. Bidding in an auction room, he goes direct for whnl lie wants without any mannerisms and with a seeming disregard for mere hundreds of pounds. “If you want the best, you must be ready to pay anything lor it," is his plan of campaign.

'•Who wants those almost fabulously priced books—what becomes of them?” I asked him. “Chiefly wealthy Americans. Air Pierpont Morgan, for one, is a great collector. And nearly all of them do public good with their purchases: they open their libraries to accredited students, who may read and examine the hooks thus made available to them. Almost all the fine libraries being acquired bv rich Americans are of benefit to the serious-minded public.” Ten per cent, Air ft risen bach told me, is a reasonable profit for a professional buyer io look for on "speculative" big purchases stich as those which he is constantly making, and he believes that the world is still full of great finds in books—if one can discover them.

“People often do not know what treasures they possess till they blow tbe dust—perhaps of a hundred years or so—off the covers. There must be somewhere, for example, set's of the original, unbound, twenty parts of ‘Pickwick Papers.’ Issued at a shilling a part, such a set would now lie worth anything from £S(X) upwards. Great Britain is the country in which most of the book treasures are to be found.

A book-lover as well as a book-buy-er, Philip Rosenbaeh is at the top of a profession which takes him to bid at fully a hundred auction rooms throughout the world every year, !