Page 42 - joa-feb-23

A Medical Curiosity

This is from the email bag: A wide range of prices for books for sale online is not at all unusual.
It’s the internet, so anybody can ask any price for any book. These
Hello, Jim - prices are asking prices only and don’t mean anything until someone
I was at my favorite thrift shop which is a nonprofit that benefits people actually pays that asking price. If I want to list a common paperback for
with disabilities. They had a book in the back and they wanted to show it sale online for say $1,000, there’s nothing to stop me, even though
to me, so I took a look and it’s an old medicine book. It is in nice condition realistically the book might only be worth a couple of dollars at best. I
– it has a dust cover and everything. It is the revised edition. Could you take don’t quite understand this approach, I guess some people assume that
a look at these images and let me know if it’s something that they can somebody out there somewhere would buy it, even though there might
make money on or just sell really cheaply? be other copies for sale in as good or better condition for a fraction of
Thanks for your help. It really means a lot. that astronomical asking price. Maybe they believe that there’s a sucker
Judy born every minute (as the comedian W.C.
Fields put it).
Dear Judy, And then other sellers of the same item
It’s a 1948 reprint of a home might actually believe that the book is
medical book LIBRARY OF valuable and list their own copies for inflated
HEALTH that first came out prices. But I think sooner or later, the price
in 1916. At 1,774 pages long, it would drop. So as far as finding reasonably
touted itself as “The most priced copies for sale online, my advice
Complete, Practical, and Up-to- would be to visit several book sites, take
Date Guide to Health and Care some time to review all the copies that are
of the sick ever published.” for sale, and don’t just look at the first
This is especially interesting copies that come up. Those are often the
for the full-color plates with highest-priced copies anyway.
hinged layers called flips which And, also, in real life and especially
showed various parts of the human online, patience often has its rewards.
body, and each time you flipped So, if you are not in a hurry for a title
open one of the layers you saw and there are no realistically priced
deeper into the body. I had one copies available or even no copies at
once from the 1890s where one of the flips all just then, then sit back and check
was a pregnant woman. The top view showed again in a few weeks, and sooner or
an obviously pregnant woman wearing a later you will find what you are
Victorian dress, then the next flip showed her searching for.
undressed, then the next showed internal On other matters, I’ve had a run
organs including the womb, and when you on The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
flipped open the womb to see what was books by J.R.R. Tolkien lately –
inside – there was the fetus! And somehow probably because of the new movie
this was all done in a manner not to offend coming out, but there they are still
anyone then. popular anyway.
The copy you saw seems to be in very Some of the fans are very
good condition which is unusual for any dedicated, to say the least. One
older book that has moving parts and it customer told me that she read the
even has the original dust jacket. Lord of the Rings trilogy once a year!
There are about 15 or 20 copies for sale And another customer said a friend was
online at various prices from $49.99 to so into Lord of the Rings that he had
$199.99. I’d guess the copy you saw would replica swords in his house with spot-
have a realistic retail value in the $75 to lights trained on them. He had a
$95 range. Hobbit-themed wedding with all sorts
As I said, it’s an interesting book, but it Medical foldout book of obscure references that only a true fan
is a later reprint. would have recognized. He even taught his dog commands in Elvish
Thanks –Jim which is the made-up language the Elves used.
Ná merye I turuhalmeri! (That’s “Happy New Year” in Elvish.)

James Dawson has owned and operated the Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe, MD since 1975, when he decided that it would be more fun to buy and sell old books and maps than to get
a “real” job. For a born collector like Jim, having a shop just might be another excuse to buy more books. He has about 30,000 second hand and rare books on the shelves, and just
about all subjects are represented. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 154; Trappe, MD 21673; 410-476-3838; unicornbookshopMD@gmail.com; www.unicornbookshop.com

40 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles