This year, we went to an illuminated manuscript workshop first and I learned how to gild and add gold foil to hand painted letters, among other things. After lunch we went to a workshop focused on recognizing when a book has been altered/repaired/changed. Sometimes book collectors buy supposedly 100% authentic, un-repaired books for a lot of dough, when in actuality things have been done to them that significantly decrease their value. It's a very interesting and ethical debate that I don't know too much about, but I'd like to. For the last half of the workshop, old books were passed around and we were supposed to identify repairs, if any, that had been done to them. When this book made its way into our hands, there didn't seem to be anything special about it. Just an old book, right?
When we opened it, we realized it was a copy of the Evening and Morning Star.
The Evening and Morning Star was the first periodical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, first published starting in June 1832 in Independence, Missouri, until a mob destroyed the printing press, and then it was continued again in Kirtland, Ohio, until September 1834. Each issue consisted of 8 pages and it was published once a month.The value of this book? It's written on the top right corner.
Can't really see it? Here's a zoomed in shot:
Still can't see it because my photo is blurry? It says 100,000 - meaning $100,000. I don't know about everybody else in the room, but I was about to make a run for it, book in hand, cuz I could sure use $100,000! It's hard to believe they were just passin' this book around, letting people handle it with their greasy and unwashed fingers. But it's cool to say that I've held a book worth $100,000. And that's my story. And I'm stickin' to it. And the end.
