Collectors, Historians See Gold In Old Notebooks And Books

And Books Don't throw away that rough draft of your latest paper just yet, archivists advise. It may never have the multimillion-dollar value of Albert Einstein's draft chapter on special relativity (see story on page 3), but it may still be sought after by historians and collectors.

Scientific memorabilia-including books, manuscripts, letters, instruments, and signatures-are actively collected. Einstein, who was a prolific letter writer, commands great attention and prices. So do Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Pasteur, Darwin, and Freud.

These and a few other scientists have achieved the household-name recognition required to send prices into the stratosphere. When Einstein's special relativity manuscript sold in 1987 for $1.2 million, it set a record for scientific manuscripts. Leonardo da Vinci's notebook set a record for any manuscript at auction when William H. Gates III, chairman of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp., bought it in 1994 for $30.8 million. At these prices, it is "celebrities...