‘The secret life of books’ + De duurste boeken&manuscripten ter wereld
30 April 2020
16:08
In the rare book marketplace, the value of a volume has always depended on a variety of factors such as rarity or completeness. In the last 100 years, in an interesting reversal, provenance seems to have replaced more objective criteria such as physical condition in dictating the value of a specific copy.
Gone are the days of crazed Victorian book collectors trimming out marginalia to fit a binding style or removing traces of previous ownership in their quest for a pristine copy! Now, the most expensive books in the world are explicitly valued because of their ownership, and entire research projects are dedicated to establishing the meaning of a smudge or the doodling habits of a reader.
