[First in the series, this article was published, slightly edited, in Volume 1, No. 1 of The Mormon Bibliographic Newsletter (January, 1992), edited by Orrin Schwab, a fine Mormon bookseller whom many will recognize as the author/compiler of A Price Guide to Scare and Rare Books and Pamphlets on Mormonism and Mormon History (third ed., 1997). Below, you will chuckle at the low price of the first edition Book of Mormon just a decade ago, and how high I felt it was at the time . . . ]
MORMON BOOK COLLECTING
by Rick Grunder
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant . . . Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. —Matthew l3:45-6
At a 1978 reception celebrating the publication of A Mormon Bibliography, President Spencer W. Kimball asked Chad Flake:
"Folks call me 'Spence,' but my name is really Spencer; why didn't you call your book 'A Bibliography of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'?"
The answer, of course, is that this momentous reference work which lists more than l0,000 publications by and about Mormons is much more than a bibliography of one or even all of the many churches which trace their origins to the work of Joseph Smith. It is a research source which covers the entire Mormon culture in the writings of its observers, its defenders and its enemies.
So it is with the field of "Mormon Book Collecting." It includes a vast body of material. It is almost impossible for a non-specialist book dealer or collector to guess the value of an uncommon Mormon book, or to figure out how best to present it for sale. In many instances, the very act of acquiring Mormon-related books is rather different from buying and selling antiquarian books in the more general world. Price schemes, points upon which preferences hinge, and even the processes of trading, dickering, and describing Mormon books form a specialized subject all its own, just as surely as is the case with collecting Shaker material, Judaica, erotica, children's books, or what-have-you. Expand this subject to include what some Mormons and their reporters call"documents" (i.e. manuscripts - handwritten material), and an even more unusual, sometimes bizarre color is added to the mystery of "Mormon Book Collecting."
An obvious topic for this first article is the Book of Mormon itself. It not only interests most Mormons who have any love at all for what is original, old and rare, but it is also an ideal focal point as we consider the theory and practice of collecting in general.
Why buy an original copy of the first edition Book of Mormon? After all, a serviceable reading copy can be had for less than the cost of a movie ticket, whereas a first edition can cost more than 1,000 movies.
What is it all about? In early 1987, a Mormon historian who wrote me asking for a bit of specific information cautioned that she was a researcher, not a collector. For her, and for most people, research and collecting are two very separate spheres. Some of us, on the other hand, cross disciplines and love both the object and the information it provides. It is a very personal thing. I can only offer very personal observations:
I, for one, am not a true collector in the more extreme sense of the word. But I know the passion. When I see a first edition Book of Mormon, I see what many others cannot see, or do not feel. Hold this object in your hands for a moment, and ask yourself who else may have touched it: perhaps Egbert G. Grandin, the printer whom Joseph Smith and Martin Harris had to convince to take on this project in l829; perhaps Joseph himself, or his brother Hyrum as they visited that shop on Palmyra's Main Street the following March. Did Emma pick it up late one night after a long day of cooking and housecleaning, perhaps staring at it by candlelight and musing that it would not pay the bills?
And how old is this cherished book? This very Book of Mormon - the precise physical object in your hands - was old and thrice-read when your parents or grand-parents were born. It had lain around for a century before the onset of our Great Depression, even for a generation before the Civil War began. Andrew Jackson was President when this book was bound. One could have taken it to Brigham Young near Rochester by spending a few cents for passage on the Erie Canal, showing it to him at a table in the ice cream parlor there while reading derisive reviews of it in the local paper.
More importantly, this first edition of the Book of Mormon appeared in a world that was not like our own. It was filled with embarrassing grammatical mistakes, more than in many books of the period. It described a Father in Heaven who was difficult to distinguish from the Son. These problems would be corrected in later editions, but these editions will never be the First, the Original Edition, the Book of Mormon, "By Joseph Smith, Junior, Author and Proprietor, l830."
And, it does not have to be ugly. Look in older Church history manuals, and you will likely see an illustration of some hopelessly tattered, stained wreck that was once a proud exemplar of the foundation of Mormonism. But there are wonderful copies around, too. On some, the leather is as clear and beautiful as the day they were bound. In some, the pages are clean, crisp and bright. And maybe, just maybe, if preparation meets opportunity, one could become yours!
How does one acquire such a treasure. How much should it cost? There are as many don'ts as dos in buying rare books, and just like buying any pearl of great price, let the buyer beware! Don't buy a first edition Book of Mormon unless you really want it and will love it for itself alone. Like a spouse, it should not be collected on a whim, for you may have it a long, long time before someone else comes knocking at your door wanting to take possession. Court it, and make sure there are no better ones around before you make the commitment. Do not settle for one whose exterior is battered or whose interior is stained, unless it is the best you can get, and you are content with the intrinsic nobility within.
In my opinion, there is no single fault more serious in a collected book than the want of the title page. If the title page is missing, then any other reasons for buying that book must be compelling indeed, such as one's extreme poverty, or the utter unavailability of a better copy. One item I remember selling without its title page was so famous and so scarce that, even at $50, the takers were practically standing in line. Had it been a Book of Mormon, of course, the price would have been higher. I once bought a damaged Book of Mormon which lacked the title page and another leaf. I paid $500, and would not pay more if another came along again tomorrow. This is indeed the low end of the spectrum. I know of a scintillating copy in private hands for which I would readily ask $7,500, but the owner loves the book even more than might several people who have tried to buy it from him. [Again, remember that this was early 1992 -RG]
A magic figure of $5,000 and up seems to hover over all first edition copies of the Book of Mormon, often without justification. Many copies simply do not merit such a price, and too many people mistakenly pay it. Years ago, a man of some means could buy a Book of Mormon for each of his children. Now he might be tempted to sell them (the books!) and take a world cruise.
What happened along the way? A dozen years ago, Ron Randle of Randle & Windle Books in San Francisco had an unusually fine condition Book of Mormon for sale. He offered it at the unheard-of price of $5,000 - and it sold! In years that followed, that figure became a badge of honor, to be pinned on those few examples which glistened and gleamed, standing out above common first edition Books of Mormon which had the usual heavy foxing (see a later article in this series), unsightly bindings, rebacked spines, or missing pages. Now, however, it seems that everyone stands up when even a boring first edition enters the room, and the $5,000 flag is waved. At this point, a truly nice Book of Mormon can aspire to $6,500 and more, but it had better be a very nice copy indeed. It had better have most of the gold on the spine. The pages had better not be stained. The foxing had better be light to medium only, and the book had better have the original blank flyleaves - all of them: two in the front, and three in the back. Higher prices have occurred, certainly, but usually only as a result of particular circumstances which bear special consideration - or in some instances, a regretful clicking of the tongue . . .
Not many years ago, a young investor walked into the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City and proudly displayed a first edition Book of Mormon for which he had just paid the proverbial great price. He soon left, a temporarily broken man, crestfallen at what he now learned. His book was a dog. The binding was coming apart, the covers curling in outlandish directions. The pages were stained and dog-eared. Bow-wow! This same fellow would never have spent such a sum on stocks or real estate without knowing what he was doing. But here was an emotional draw: he was a Mormon, and this was the Book of Mormon. Everyone knows it is worth $5,000, and he had paid it. What a find! What a mistake.
The cost of rare books, as with all collectibles, is based on a combination of factors:
1) Perceived significance
2) Rarity
3) Condition
4) The number of willing, able buyers in the marketplace.
All these factors must be considered together. Rarity by itself, for example, is almost meaningless if one tries to translate it into dollars and cents. In the case of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, for instance, it is obvious that Grandma's handwritten recipe book is much more rare, but generally viewed by most people as less significant. Only a handful of people would compete to pay more than $20 for Grandma's production, no matter how good the recipes. Like Grandma's book, the Gutenberg Bible is also more rare than the Book of Mormon first edition. But unlike Grandma's recipes, that Bible today could easily bring l,000 times the price of the Mormon rarity. These figures are very rough, but the message is clear: When a lot of monied customers want a scarce thing which they think is very meaningful - and it is in desirable condition - then prices skyrocket.
It can be difficult to analyze such factors, but there really are ways to price a book consistently, and there are principles of ethics and reason which good book collectors and dealers follow. Standards and techniques of scholarly historical description do exist for rare books and manuscripts, both in and out of the Mormon collecting world, no matter what anyone may try to tell you.