Turnbull Library Worth £500,000

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 651, 1 May 1929, Page 1

Turnbull Library Worth £500,000

PRECIOUS VOLUMES RAPIDLY INCREASING'VALUE Press Association WELLINGTON, Monday. Mr. Johannes C. Andersen, librarian of the Turnbull Library, speaking at a Rotary Club luncheon, said the books collected by the late Mr. Turnbull were so rapidly increasing in value that he estimated the library wa3 now worth between £250,000 and £500,000, and in 10 years, or probably much less, would increase to £1,000,000. Mr. Andersen gave instances where first editions and similar works sought after by collectors had advanced from 130 guineas, the sum paid by Mr. Turnbull, to £3,500. Another book for which he gave £854 had increased in value to £3,000, and another, of yvhich there are three sets on the shelves, recently brought £2,500 for one set. Even in modern authors, the prices had increased most remarkably. Mr. Turnbull gave 18 guineas for a copy of a book by Joseph Conrad, with the author’s inscription in it. A similar book W'as recently sold for £4,25. For Feilding’s “Tom Jones,” £5,800 w r as paid lately, and there is a copy in the library. Mr. Andersen added that the library is better known, on account of its literary value, outside New Zealand than in it.