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 buying celebrities," notes Malcolm Kottler, an Arlington, Mass., collector and dealer of books important in the history of science and medicine. David Schulson, a New York-based dealer in scientific autographs concurs. "Most collectors want high points-a nice letter of Einstein's, say, or other obvious names that have become synonymous with science," he explains. At the next level, he says, are doctors or scientists who may want books and autographs (meaning anything handwritten, such as letters, manuscripts, or signatures) of people in their field. Psychoanalysts typically want a Sigmund Freud autograph, for example, and this demand helps keep prices high. Some dealers in scientific and medical books, autographs, and instruments Author: Raymond Giordano The Antiquarian Scientist P.O. Box 985 Acton, Mass. 01720 (508) 263-5504 Fax: (508) 263-0114 Malcolm Kottler Scienta Books P.O. Box 433 Arlington, Mass. 02174 (617) 643-5725 Fax: (617) 643-0163 David Schulson Autographs 11 E. 68th St. New York, N.Y. 10021 (212) 517-8300 Memorabilia of lesser-known scientists, even important ones, are much less valuable. Kottler recalls seeing letters by Freud and Einstein in an autograph dealer's inventory for $7,000 to $8,000. By contrast, letters by T.H. Morgan, a geneticist who won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1933, and Hermann J. Muller, an important fruit fly geneticist in the first half of this century, were offered for $250 or less. Sotheby's David Redden, head of books and manuscripts worldwide, sees this disparity as an opportunity for scientists who want to collect. "Scientists ought to collect other scientists," he says, because "they're in the best position to understand" the significance of the work. They can collect in depth in a field without paying exorbitant prices. Other factors that determine the value of scientific books, manuscripts, and letters are scarcity and historical importance. Charles Darwin wrote thousands of letters. One about what he had to eat for lunch, says Schulson, would command much less than a letter discussing the origin of species. Of course, notes Kottler, the good letters on significant topics are frequently in institutional collections, so that letters of insignificant content are often all that is available and, consequently, are valuable. So far, the papers of few recent or contemporary scientists are sought by collectors. An important exception: the papers in the April 25, 1953, and May 30, 1953, issue of Nature by James Watson and Francis Crick on the structure of DNA. An offprint (sometimes called reprint) of the first paper and two accompanying ones by other scientists, signed by five of the six living authors, sold for 20,000 pounds in London last year. A set of the two 1953 issues of Nature containing the landmark Watson and Crick papers may bring more than $1,000 in good condition. Even the entire bound volume 171 of Nature containing those two issues may be priced by dealers at hundreds of dollars or more. Different versions of a journal article appeal to different collectors. Some want the issue containing the article because that is the way most people were exposed to the new idea, explains Kottler. Others argue that offprints are more collectible, since "they are usually scarcer and the author may have distributed them to important people," Kottler says. Kottler himself prefers offprints, although he sometimes finds them difficult to sell. "Very few collectors-who are used to books-find them aesthetically pleasing," he notes. Still, a collector interested in 20th-century science must collect offprints, for the simple reason that hardly any major scientific results in this century appeared directly in book form. That change was already beginning in the 19th century. Gregor Mendel's classic work on inheritance in garden peas was published in 1865 in the Proceedings of the Brxnn Natural History Society. Mendel received 40 offprints, of which 10 or so survive. One brought about $20,000 at auction in the late 1980s. One other form of a journal article that is occasionally for sale is the extract, or tearsheet, the actual pages ripped from the journal. These may bring high prices-such as $3,000 for Sir Alexander Fleming's 1929 paper on the antibacterial action of penicillium-but do not usually appeal to collectors. Kottler does not collect, buy, or sell extracts. "If high values are placed on them, what will stop people from going into libraries and ripping out important articles?" he asks. Much collectible scientific memorabilia takes the form of autograph material. Few scientists emerge from a lecture hall having to dodge eager autograph seekers waving pens, but some scientists do find their signature in demand-Nobel Prize winners, for instance. IN DEMAND: Nobelist Eric Wieschaus' signature is sought. Princeton University molecular biologist Eric Wieschaus, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work in developmental biology, has received a boxful of letters from all over the world. Most of the correspondents requested his signature-he signed everything he was asked to-but some requested manuscripts. "I don't handwrite manuscripts anymore, so there wasn't anything I could send them," he comments. Indeed, the increasing use of computers for drafting papers and of E-mail for corresponding with colleagues and submitting manuscripts clouds the issue of collecting. "From a commercial point of view, computer files have little value because they can be copied so readily," says Sotheby's Redden. They may be of value to historians, however. A computer file may be the only place some information has been saved. And if successive drafts of a paper are saved, historians have a valuable window onto a scientist's thought processes. Redden's advice to scientists: Save everything and keep a journal, especially if involved in cutting-edge work. Beyond any possible future monetary value to collectors, the information in a scientist's contemporaneous account of scientific discovery will undoubtedly be of historical value. Many prominent scientists, who know their work will be intensively studied long after they are gone, donate their papers to a university or other institution, such as the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia or a professional association like the American Physical Society. BOOK DEALER: Malcolm Kottler Sometimes, items considered private, such as a personal book collection or letters, may remain with the family and eventually come up for sale. Dealers in books and manuscripts often find hidden gems when such items are sold. Some books belonging to the great cell biologist and embryologist E.B. Wilson remained with his family after his death in 1939 and found their way into a collection of a western Massachusetts book dealer more than 40 years later. There, Kottler found a copy of the book The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity dedicated to Wilson and inscribed to him by the authors, T.H. Morgan, A.H. Sturtevant, H.J. Muller, and C.B. Bridges. Such a dedication copy is unique. With serendipity playing such a prominent role in the process of scientific discovery, it often isn't possible to predict what will be valuable in the future. Researchers tempted to throw away an old box of papers squirreled away in an office or attic would do well to keep in mind the words of David Redden: "Attics and closets perform a tremendously civilizing function." Billy Goodman, a freelance science writer based in Montclair, N.J., is online at goodmanb@styx.ios.com.

Collectors, Historians See Gold In Old Notebooks And Books

Apr 14, 1996

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