Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A coming Judaica Auction Catalog: a look in to the psychology of auction buyers

A New York Auction House is set to have their next Judaica Auction this coming week. I just finished going through the catalog, and as usual there are some really nice books which I would not mind owning to say the least. A nice volume of a Bomberg Talmud, or a 1st Edition of Menasseh Ben Israel's Nishmat Adam for example. But what struck me most was the abundance of books offered which are being offered at multiple times their retail value. This phenomenon is in not limited to this auction or auction house, the major auction houses seem to be able to sell pretty much anything, even if the same item can be gotten for a fraction of the price elsewhere.

Here are just a few examples of the many in the current catalog. Item 98 offers The Hagadah of Passover. Edited by David and Tamar de Sola Pool. For Members of the Armed Forces of the United States. Just for a background, 550,000 Jews served in the US Armed forces in WWII. Every soldier was issued one of these Haggadot, they are thus not rare in any way. The asking price currently by competitive booksellers is $40-50. If you prefer to buy at auction, the estimate is $300 - $400.

Take a look at item 68 as well, offerring White, William Charles. Chinese Jews, the classic 3 volume set which you can buy now online for under $200. We sold a set in the store just this week for $120. Auction's asking price? $600 - $900. Item 60 offers He'ach published by Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch. This is indeed a nice historical item, but any honest dealer will ask for no more than $250 for it, while in the auction the reserve is set at $1,000. There are scores of other items like this throughout the auction as well. After a quick search online, I was able to find items 18, 37, and 38 online for pennies on the dollar as well. What, if so, is the reason behind this? Why would someone pay multiple times the value of something for an item they can get for a few pennies elsewhere?
Brooklyn Museum - A Book Auction at Sotheby's - Thomas Rowlandson

I have found that the psychology behind these purchases are several. Firstly, there is the prestige of buying at auction. I have many a time, viewed collections, where the auction tags are prominently displayed with the item purchased, ensuring that every observer knows where the item was purchased. I have heard many an ignorant collector take pride in buying something at say Sotheby's for example, though he couldn't for the life of him tell you anything about it. To prove this is true, ask any dealer and they can vouch this happens more often than not, when underbidders are offered a second copy of an item they bid on just seconds ago, they invariably turn it down. Nothing has changed in those few interim seconds other than their ability to say they bought it at auction. Not that there is anything wrong with buyers who buy this way, I just think it is an interesting observation. If a buyer is willing to pay for the experience, so be it.

Another factor, unfortunately, is auction houses intentionally preying on clueless customers. If, for example, they know they have an uniformed customer who collects Haggadot and lacks a specific one, they intentionally multiply the price, describe it as "rare" and place it in auction even though otherwise it would be of no interest. Several auction houses have been caught shill bidding against real bidders as well. Often, there may be a dealer involved as well, who may go as far as placing an item in an auction, and then go and convince one of his customers to bid on the item.

A final ingredient in the magic-spell cast by auctions was uncovered by researchers from Princeton. Their experiments asked volunteers to play on-line auctions with different rules. Some of these auctions had rules that encouraged over-bidding (like typical open auctions, which most of us are familiar with from movies), and some had rules that encouraged rational behavior (like the eBay structure). With enough guidance from the auction rules, the bidders didn’t end up paying much more than they originally thought was reasonable – but only if they thought they were bidding against a computer programme. As soon as the volunteers thought they were bidding against other live humans they found it impossible to bid rationally, whatever the auction rules.

This implies that the competitive element of auctions is crucial to provoking our irrational buying behavior. Once we’re involved in an auction we’re not just paying to own the sale item, we’re paying to beat other people who are bidding and prevent them from having it.

So it seems Gore Vidal had human nature, and the psychology of auctions, about right when he said: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” 

A letter to Rabbi Henkin requesting help in publishing Keren Yishai



 Here is a nice piece of History, a letter sent from Rabbi Shmuel Silbermann, requested help from Rabbi Henkin in publishing his father's works Keren Yishai

Monday, January 21, 2013

An unexplainable coincidence, A Library, A Customer & the Sandak

This morning after hauling in to the store a recent library acquired, a customer enters our store. Briefing him on the recent acquisition, I mention offhand that the books came from a fellow who lived for a time in Portland. Turns out the customer had lived in Portland decades ago as well. Not only did the customer know the now deceased owner of the books, the man was his Sandak!
The families were both very good friends and a few phone calls later the widow and the customer were both on the line together reminiscing life in Portland 30 years ago.
Assuming there are 15,000,000 Jews in the world, the chance of walking in to a bookstore who just acquired your Sandak's library is somewhere like 1 in 15 million. Just Fabulous to me!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

For Posterity the Business Card of ISAIAH BERGER, BOOKSELLER, BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN, NY

Isaiah Berger sold Jewish books in the early 1900s, in Brownsville, 125 Dumont Avenue, Brooklyn. His son is Professor David Berger, dean of Yeshiva University. "Judaeo-Oriental Book Service"

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Advertisment for a Jewish Bookseller in London 1904, R. Mazin et Co

Selling books was a much larger operation a century ago. Take a look at this advertisement publishing in Ahiasaf 1904, for R. Mazin et co Booksellers in London. They sold new, used, rare books, were bookbinders, sold wholesale, sold retail, published books, bartered books, sold books on consignment as well. Books were not all they sold, tefillin, torahs, mezuzot, albums, greeting cards..... portraits, music sheets.....Journals in all languages... the list goes on and on.
Wat happened to all London's bookbuyers, I will find it hard to believe that such an operation can survive in today's London Jewish Community. If my math does not err me, today for a standard Jewish Community, you need one bookstore for every 100 Pizza Stores.
It's nice to see the ad call anything out of England Hutz La'aretz (חוץ לארץ), typical British imperialists, who think the world revolves around their empire.

Monday, January 14, 2013

the Bar Mitzvah Bentcher of RAANAN ABRAHAM AGUS today, head of Goldman Sachs

If you stumbled across the humble looking bentcher given at the Bar-Mitzvah of Raanan A. Agus, you wouldn't imagine he now is one of the heads of Goldman Sachs. Either way, here it is:


ITZCHAK WEISCHSELBAUM, BOOKSELLER IN BELZ, GALICIA


Here's a nice old stamp of a bookseller of Hebrew books in Belz, Galicia
יצחק ווינשילבוים
ספרים האנדלוג
בעלז גאליציען
Jsak Weischselbaum
Buchhandlung
Belz, Galizien
The book is a Zeror Hamor printed in Warsaw, 1879. 
"A bookseller's stamp, is his legacy"

Sunday, January 13, 2013

New World interacting with Old, RABBI JOSEPH H. LOOKSTEIN & RABBI YOSEF E. HENKIN


Here is a great quote from this letter I just got sent by Rabbi Joseph Hyman Lookstein to Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin ""FORGIVE ME FOR WRITING TO YOU IN ENGLISH, BUT I DO NOT HAVE A HEBREW STENOGRAPHER AND TYPIST. I AM SURE, HOWEVER, THAT YOU ARE ALREADY A MASTER OF THE LANGUAGE, AND THEREFORE, THE LETTER WILL BE PERFECTLY INTELLIGIBLE TO YOU."
Rav Henkin was already in the USA 44 years at the time. It's nice to see the way the 2 very different generations of Rabbis in America corresponded.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

A Purchase of a Library turned Adventure

During a recent library acquisition in Boro Park, Brooklyn, my bookhunting took an adventurous turn. After being led in to a house by the owner of the property and the books, I was left alone to box and cart out the books. Not 2 minutes later, Shomrim pulled up and demanded I explain what I was doing in someone else's house. Apparently, a neighbor saw someone they didn't recognize moving boxes out of the house and gave Shomrim a call, and do their job they did. They asked me for ID, called the owner of the house, confirmed all was ok and only then, leave me back to my task.
But I got my first New Order, by Arthur Szyk there!

Friday, January 4, 2013

how do you translate מגיד משרים? Here is one Rabbi's version

Here is a letterhead of Rabbi Benzion Yadler, interesting is his translation of the title he gives himself מגיד משרים, here is his version of it "Grand Speaker". It is entertaining to see how such Great Maggids viewed themselves.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

ISAIAH BERGER: A JEWISH BOOKSELLER OF YESTERYEAR AND HIS REFINED TASTE OF BOOKS


AN OLD CATALOG PUBLISHED BY ISAIAH BERGER
Show me your library and I'll tell you who you are. Even more so can be said of booksellers, as their libraries are easily culled from unwanted books and gifts they never needed. Their libraries tend to reflect their taste and interests very well.
I just chanced upon a book owned by a Jewish Bookseller of generations ago, Isaiah Berger, who sold his books in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York. It would be a commercial suicide to try to sell books there now, but at it's prime, Brownsville had one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. The book itself, was The laughable stories by Bar Hebraeus, edited by Wallis Budge, with the Original Syriac and an English translation. Budge's book are in great demand now by collectors of Occult and Ancient Egyptian History, but I would doubt that more than a handful of people ever read the book. Berger took the time to leaves his notes throughout the book, pointing similarities to Jewish texts and pointing out Jewish Sources to the stories in the book, his notes being in English, Yiddish and Hebrew. I never had the pleasure of meeting Berger, but after seeing this book, I feel to be old friends of his.