CAN YOU LEARN EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW BY SURFING THE INTERNET?
WHAT'S THE POINT OF OWNING BOOKS, OLD OR NEW?
There is no question that the internet has assisted us in the old book and antique business. I would suggest that for identification purposes, online searches have reduced research time by upwards of three quarters. Which is huge, when you consider how many hours are devoted to authenticating pieces, and researching provenance. And it's true, that most major antiquarian texts have been republished on Google Books, including our very own "Gravenhurst; Or Thoughts on Good and Evil," by William Henry Smith. This is where the Town of Gravenhurst, of course, got its name in August of 1862.
From electronic readers to Google Books, there are few reasons to own books these days, and if you add to this, the amount of research material that is already online, wow, how do book publishers and sellers make any money? As I pointed out in a previous blog, like the doomsayers who predicted that vinyl (records) were on the way out, with the onset of the CD era, and have been proven wrong times a hundred, those who heralded the curtain call for books, were also premature and ridiculously untutored about the resilience of book buyers, collectors and advocates of the printed word, to maintain a tradition that has been serving us well for centuries. Naysayers be damned, books will survive, and I predict there will be more old book collectors, as the beautifully bound, wonderfully ink-scented texts become more desirable in the future; not just for decorators to "pretend-their-smart," but for serious admirers of the history of publishing.
Dave Brown was just one of millions, who have dedicated their free, and professional time, to hunting and gathering these old and rare books, and conserving them in massive and incredibly valuable collections. I know what Dave Brown liked the most, and it did, in a way, have something to do with the book, "Moby Dick," by American Author, Herman Melville. Dave was a collector of books on whaling, and would have given an arm and an eye to own a handwritten log book. from a whaling ship from either the eighteenth of nineteenth centuries. He had quite a number of antiquated books on whaling heritage, some dating before the story of "Moby Dick," and the movie with Gregory Peck, became milestones in literature and then film. These how-to, and "what happened out there" books, were quite valuable, and Dave had to muster all his capabilities as a bookman, and horse-trader, to get what he wanted off many of his book dealer friends, mostly in the United States. Dave was keen on getting any rare or antiquarian text on the natural sciences, because he was also, as I have written about numerous times, a well known Outdoor Education innovator, working for the Hamilton, Ontario school board. He did have these books for a reason, but he really should have had a university level teaching position, because this is what he had in his repertoire, as research material. The public school students of the region loved the man, but he had so much more to share, which would have been way, way over the heads of his underlings. It was over my head for the first two years of my apprenticeship.
This past weekend, Suzanne and I, and the wee lads of the music industry, went on a regional antique, musical instrument, and old book hunt, in the spirit of Dave Brown; the man who left no stone unturned, and never came away from an outing anywhere without a truck load of goods for himself, or to use as trade-bait with a plethora of collectors of just about everything; who may have had some books and old paper they would consider using as barter to get what they wanted. It's what we do as well, and he was, afterall, our mentor. Suzanne was able to get ten out-of-print cookbooks, with some international significance, and I was able to get eight interesting books, including a little gem, circa 1917, dealing with Astrology, having some amazing art work on the dustjacket; being of a wizard looking into the future, with a human skull positioned on his desk. The author opens up the text, trying to convince the readership, that astrology is a matter of science, and should be taken seriously by the scientific community; yet the appearance of a wizard on the front, with a human skull, looking into the future as a psychic, seems in contradiction to the author's interest in validating the study of astrology. I will offer a picture of it on our facebook page in the next day or so.
Another strange find, and full to overflowing with coincidence, was the discovery, in a second hand shop, of the hardcover "Volume Two 1878-1883," of "Cosima Wagner's Diaries," this copy being published by Collins, of London, in 1980. What makes this a significant find for me, outside of the fact, it is about one of the world's great music composers, Richard Wagner, (Cosima being his life partner) is that it was found in Orillia. Just over a year ago, we acquired the remainders of an estate, of an elderly German woman, who had in her possession several portraits, of what we presume were her grandparents. There was no clear documentation, as to the male and female subjects of the portraits, but most recently, we found research material in old papers from the estate, given to us a month ago, that these were her grandparents; but there is nothing written on the portraits to have led us to this conclusion.
There was a suggestion, from the executor of the estate, that the man in the portrait, was somehow related to the composer, Richard Wagner, but of the many photographs and paintings of Wagner that we studied, we couldn't find any parallel likeness with this particular painting, other than some obvious facial similarities. We knew it wasn't Wagner, or his son, but could it have been a nephew, or cousin? We have had many coincidences since acquiring this small collection, which isn't unusual for us in this trade, but somehow or other this is going to be proven beyond the coincidences; and, as it turns out, by the use of books and print material, and not exclusively the internet.
We have photographs we can attach to this pair of portraits, of who we believe are the German woman's parents, and a brother. First of all, we have a picture of her parents, her father being wearing a German military uniform, from the era of the First World War. We also have two other images of a person we believe to be her brother, also in a German military uniform, from the vintage of the Second World War. Slowly we have been tying them together, on little more than tidbits of information, gathered over the past twelve months from inconsistent sources. Yesterday, there it was, sitting on the bookshelf of a popular second hand shop, and as happens many times in my book hunts, I felt as if something spirited was forcing me to look at the bottom row of books; where I found this book out of place with the other titles. Only a few weeks ago, Suzanne and I had been researching Wagner and his performer wife, Cosima, because we found references to both of them in the collection of personal papers we had received, from the same estate, nearly a year after acquiring the first lot of items.
What makes this a little spooky, is that I knew the woman when she lived in Gravenhurst, back a few years, before she moved to Orillia. She would call me twice a year, and talk for an hour about the Second World War, and what it was like to be a civilian in her native Germany, during the Allied bombing attacks. Seeing as I had never had a first person account of this reality, I was eager to listen, and it's true, I did make copious notes on our talks. She was as fascinated about the history of Gravenhurst's Camp Calydor, (German Prisoner of War Camp, 1939-1946) as I was, and she had enjoyed many contacts with those intimate to its heritage, especially in the German-Canadian community. Some of her viewpoints were a little radical from what I was used to, up to that point as a modest historian of the war years, and it seemed she liked the fact she was knocking me from my complacency, to hear another side of the story. Not that she shifted my opinion, but I wanted to know about her side of the story, as a German citizen, who as a child,couldn't escape the ravages of war. And how it shaped her life-long opinion about war and the history that was recorded; which she did not agree with entirely. She would be considered a Holocaust denier, without question, and she supported those with higher profile, who worked in this regard internationally. I listened regardless, because I'm an historian, and she was offering something that, while troubling to my understanding of the Holocaust, to that point, offered me a chance to hear this from someone who was in the country, at the time these atrocities against the Jews, and others, were being committed. And yes, she also gave her opinion about the fire-storms set off by Allied bombers, that killed many thousands of German civilians. My position was to listen, and not to debate. She was a very intelligent individual, with considerable knowledge of European history, so it wasn't the case she couldn't offer scholarly opinion of the war and all its horrors. She did, on occasion send me material as a counter-point to the Holocaust, but never included her name as the sender. I just dumped it in the trash bin, because it was from a larger body of Holocaust deniers who were also fundraising, which I wanted no part.
I didn't know, when we purchased the collection, the contents had belonged to the same woman, who had left the area, to reside in an apartment in Orillia. In fact, she had been in our Gravenhurst store, only a few weeks before her death, to pick up a copy of Cecil Porter's book on the Gravenhurst POW Camp, known as "The Gilded Cage," and to enquire whether we had an accordion she had once owned, and sold to us before she moved south. It has been a curious sequence of events ever since, but quite in keeping with the way things happen in the antique trade, that inevitably involves someone's death, and the settling of an estate.
As for trying to prove the connection to composer Richard Wagner, there is a family resemblance we are following up on, just in case it's true. Some times these roads lead to nowhere in particular. Other times, well, let's just say it pays to perform due diligence, when there is suspicion of a bigger, more interesting picture to uncover.
Old books? You never know when you're going to need one to prove a point. I will spend the rest of my life being in the company of books. They make me feel connected to world history; these wonderful authors are my mentors.
A RUTHLESS COLLECTOR WITH A LONG MEMORY - CARRIED OVER DECADES
DAVE BROWN WAS SMART, INSIGHTFUL, WISE, AND WILEY - BUT COULD HE EVER HOLD A GRUDGE
I NEEDED DAVE BROWN'S TUTORIALS IN THE ANTIQUE AND RARE BOOK FIELD. HE WAS A GOOD ADVISOR ON PAPER HERITAGE ITEMS, AND WHAT TO LOOK FOR, AND HOW TO UTILIZE THE INFORMATION WITHIN. WE WERE BOTH HISTORIANS, AS WELL AS ANTIQUE-FIELD DABBLERS. MINE WAS PROFESSIONAL DABBLING. HIS WAS AS A COLLECTOR, HOARDER, AND OCCASIONAL YARD SALE LIQUIDATOR. DAVE WAS FAMOUS FOR HIS HAMILTON YARD SALES, AND SOLD THOUSANDS OF FURNITURE PIECES HE ACQUIRED, TO MCMASTER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, NEEDING DESKS, CHAIRS AND SHELVING FOR THEIR NEW DIGS.
MOST IN HAMILTON NEW DAVE BROWN AS THE DIRECTOR OF ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING OUTDOOR EDUCATION CLASSROOMS IN THE PROVINCE. IN OUR SPARE TIME, FROM OUR MORE SERIOUS EMPLOYMENT, DAVE AND I TALKED A LOT ABOUT COLLECTING OLD BOOKS AND ANTIQUES GENERALLY. I VERY MUCH APPRECIATED DAVE SHARING HIS STORIES WITH ME, BECAUSE TO THAT POINT, I'D HAD TO EDUCATE MYSELF WITH ONLY PERIPHERY ASSISTANCE FROM COLLEAGUE-COMPETITORS……AND THEN, I LEARNED BY WATCHING OVER THEIR SHOULDERS, NOT THAT THEY HAD VOLUNTEERED TO TUTOR THE NEW-GUY TO THE TRADE.
DAVE LIVED HIS OFF-SCHOOL HOURS AS AN ADVENTURE. BELIEVE ME, HE HAD LOTS AND LOTS OF ADVENTURES. HE MET A LOT OF INTERESTING PEOPLE, AND HE WAS INVITED INTO HOMES THAT WERE LIKE ART GALLERIES, FULL OF PAINTINGS AND ANTIQUES. FOLKS TRUSTED DAVE, AND HE WAS WORTHY OF THE HOSPITALITY. DAVE WOULD HAVE SHARED HIS TALES WITH ANYONE KIND ENOUGH TO INVITE HIM HOME FOR DINNER, OR OFFER A PLACE TO SLEEP FOR THE NIGHT.
NOW I DIDN'T FIND OUT MANY DETAILS OF DAVE'S STRANGER SIDE, UNTIL MONTHS, YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH. IT WAS PRETTY INCREDIBLE, THE LENGTHS DAVE WENT TO, IN ORDER TO SURROUND HIMSELF WITH NATURE, HISTORY AND ARTIFACTS. ONE OF HIS BIGGEST PROJECTS INVOLVED WHAT WAS KNOWN, I BELIEVE (BUT ALWAYS STAND TO BE CORRECTED BY THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER), AS THE "TURTLE CLUB," A LARGE LOG CAMP BUILDING ON THE NORTHERN EDGE OF ALGONQUIN PARK. DAVE HAD BEEN VISITING THE ABANDONED BUILDING FOR YEARS, AND BY SOME ARRANGEMENT WITH A PARTNER, WHO WILL NOT BE REVEALED BY THIS WRITER, THE BUILDING WAS TO BE TORN DOWN, THE LOGS NUMBERED AS TO THE LOCATION OF THE BUILDING THEY CAME FROM, REMOVED TO A STORAGE SITE, AND THEN RE-BUILT AT ANOTHER CAMP SITE IN THE DORSET AREA…..OR THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN LED TO BELIEVE. DAVE DID TALK ABOUT THIS ADVENTURE WITH AN ANTIQUE BUILDING, BUT REVEALED VERY LITTLE ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP THAT WENT SOUR.
IN THE SUMMER, THIS PARTICULAR YEAR, DAVE WAS TO COMMENCE, WITH HELP PRESUMABLY, TEARING DOWN THE LOG STRUCTURE, AND COMMENCING THE NUMBERING IDENTIFICATION. IT WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH, AND WHEN THE JOB HAD BEEN COMPLETED, AND THE LOGS SHIPPED TO A YARD NEAR DORSET, THERE WAS TO BE A SETTLING OF ACCOUNTS BETWEEN THE PARTNERS. I HAVE NO IDEA OF THE PAYMENT SCHEME, OR IF THERE HAD BEEN SOME OTHER ITEM FOR BARTER, ON THIS ADVENTURE. BUT DAVE WASN'T REIMBURSED ACCORDING TO THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN HISTORIANS……. AS THEY BOTH WERE WELL KNOWN IN THEIR PROFESSIONAL LIVES. AMONGST BEING OCCUPIED IN OTHER PROFESSIONAL CAPACITIES AS WELL. IN SHORT, DAVE FELT HE GOT STIFFED FOR A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF SOMETHING…..MONEY OR PIECES USED AS TRADE BAIT.
LET ME PUT IT TO YOU, THIS WAY. SHORTLY AFTER DAVE'S DEATH, A SMALL JOURNAL WAS SOUGHT OUT BY THE SURVIVING PARTNER, THAT CONTAINED THE NUMBER CODE OF THE LOGS, THAT HAD ONCE MADE UP THE ARCHITECTURAL INTEGRITY OF THE FORMER TURTLE CLUB. FOR YEARS AND YEARS THE HARD FEELINGS WERE ALLOWED TO FESTER, BETWEEN TWO FORMER FRIENDS, AND THE LOGS SAT ROTTING WHERE THEY HAD BEEN DEPOSITED, AS A RESULT OF THE FINANCIAL GRID-LOCK. TO MY KNOWLEDGE, HAVING BEEN CLOSE TO THE EXECUTORS OF THE ESTATE, AS DAVE'S BIOGRAPHER, HE HAD DESTROYED THE NUMBER CODE MUCH EARLIER……..TO RULE OUT ANY POTENTIAL, THAT IN THE EVENT OF HIS DEMISE, FIRST, HIS PARTNER WOULD GET THE WEE BOOK. FINALLY WINNING THE BATTLE OF WILLS. JUST THIS PAST YEAR, THE PARTNER PASSED-ON AS WELL, WITHOUT THE MATTER EVER BEING SATISFACTORILY RESOLVED.
On one weekend, the summer season before his death, Dave arrived at the house particularly animated. He was on the brink of getting a major paper collection, of very old business journals, from the late 1800's, that he had been called to look at, and appraise somewhat, by a Hamilton jeweler. There were about five or so books in the small lot, but content wise, the material was quite significant for local historians. While the jeweler had the books, they had actually been left in the building by a former owner, and the ledgers contained inventory and sales records from a general merchant's business, that had been kept in an old safe. The former business owner didn't care about the old books and receipts from the retired general store, but to Dave, they were a precious find. But here's the thing, once again. The jeweler didn't want to sell them. He wanted a rough idea what they were worth. Dave knew he had his work cut out for him, but was optimistic he could eventually seal the deal with a nice, fat, cash offer. Dave was a cheapskate, of that there's no doubt, but when he really wanted something, like these books, he could definitely make a substantial and alluring offer. So for hours, Dave ran ideas past Suzanne and I, to create a master plan in advance, that would convince this jeweler to unclench the paper heritage. He wasn't being dishonest about it, but once again, the collector-Dave was obsessive about getting what he wanted, with a "take no prisoners" point of view.
To the best of my knowledge, the jeweler never relented to Dave's many forays, and unless he didn't tell me about it, my guess is he struck out on the books. He probably had to settle for a first-refusal kind of agreement with the chap, that if he was to ever sell the records, Dave would be asked to make a bid submission. He was not a good sport when it came to such things, but in all honesty, this kind of relationship with a "maybe" seller, has been a damnation to many of us in the antique trade. I'm reminded of the nice old timer, who invited me over to his house, to look at some antique furnishings he wished to sell. I was pretty green as a dealer, and very poor as a business man, and the gentleman's pieces were way, way beyond my budget…..for the whole year. They guy was a jerk, and made me feel quite inadequate as a dealer, and offered the smart-ass comment, before I left, that "I knew you wouldn't be able to afford my stuff. I just wanted to hear what your appraisals would be, so I could compare with the other dealers I've spoken with." I left with a nice pellet gun, I bought for five bucks. Geez, I had to buy something to justify my time. I did think, God forgive me, about winging a pellet into the guy's buttocks, but then I'm too good looking to go to prison.
Dave had an uncompromising determination. One day, a friend of his, with a cottage on Clear Lake, east of Bracebridge, was getting rid of an old stove that had been in the vintage cottage, from its original construction. Dave used to stay for weeks at the island cottage, even by himself, and when his owner friend told him about changing over the old wood stove, for a new one, of course the wheels started turning. Dave thought he'd like the stove for a display he had planned for the small museum exhibit space, he maintained, at the Hamilton Board of Education Administrative Centre. I'm betting the stove was made at a Hamilton foundry. So the plan was to ship the old stove over to the mainland car-park, by available watercraft…..say a small aluminum boat.
I knew Dave was going to do this, because he had dropped in on the Friday night, here at Birch Hollow, just to say hello. So when he came into our antique shop, on the main street of Bracebridge (at the time), I asked him right-off, how the big stove move went. He just stood there, with hands on hip, covered in mud and bits of plant life from the bottom of the lake, and two great big cuts on his bare legs. The light colored shorts were no longer so light. Kind of mud-hued. I didn't have to ask a second time. Dave had a wonderful way of introducing a story…..that he had obviously honed as a career teacher. He described the process of getting that old iron stove out of the cottage, down the rocks to the dock, into the the perfect spot to then drop it down into the moored boat. To hear him tell the story, was hilarious but if you laughed, he could fire off like a triple loaded musket…..flames shooting out his nostrils. Well, it went badly, and that was obvious, looking at the wounds on his legs. "I was working with people who didn't understand the requirements of patience and balance," he said, while picking debris out of his waist band. "I told them to wait, wait, and be careful, and they just dropped the stove into the boat. It flipped us over in half a second, and the stove hit me on one leg, the dock on the other, and we all went swimming at once."
Another time, he arrived at the store wet and covered in mud, and frankly smelled like swamp. "For God's sake man, don't you know how to paddle a canoe?" I inquired. "Oh I know how to paddle all right, Ted. But the mud on me isn't from capsizing. I meant to jump into the swamp," he smiled with a wink of the eye. "Why Dave?" I asked. "I found a huge preserved end of a white pine log, at the bottom of this swamp, and I could see the imprint of an old logging stamp." To Dave, a logging historian himself, this was a big deal-find. The actual iron stamps are very expensive to purchase, if you can find one at all. Here was the result of an iron stamp, from a Muskoka based company, imprinted into the log. I believe it was attributed to the J.D. Shier Lumber Company. The irony here, is that my father, a career lumber salesman, had moved us to Bracebridge in the mid 1960's, to work at Shiers.
So Dave got a large section of pine log……weighing about three hundred pounds on dry land, up from the muck of the ages, and into his canoe. He got the log secured in his canoe, and then walked through a large portion of Muskoka swamp, pushing the canoe toward shore. And yes, should you be wondering, he was covered in leeches. Yummy. That explained the suction marks and blood on his bare legs. His plan, as the owner of the pine chunk, was to put it on display at the school board's offices, as part of a new logging exhibit he had planned for later that fall…..with a selection of logging artifacts, including the iron logging stamps from his private stash. I have his drawings for the set up, that the estate afforded me after his death, to use as graphics in his biography. Dave was not adverse to pushing the envelope, if and when he had an opportunity, and the plan to pull it off. I asked him, sometime later, if he had any plans to haul up that old wood stove that had been unceremoniously dumped into Clear Lake. "No Ted, that one's for the fishes!"
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