Signed by Ayn Rand…. Maybe
01.12.08 By Collin DavidI’ve mentioned it before, but I once found myself in the possession of a book by Ayn Rand called ‘For the New Intellectual’. I’ve always had a passing interest in Ayn Rand, in the same way I have a passing interest in Scientology, Dave Sim, and other completely wacky things that somehow acquire devout and rabid followings. Not only was this book a first edition, a claim verifiable by the initial pages, but it was signed by Ayn Rand herself.
This was a claim that was not verifiable at all, in any way.
While I had every intention on reading the book, once I discovered the signature on the title page, the book went safely into storage, untouchable and waiting for a proper destination. Authenticating a signature on an old book would surely be an expensive and time-consuming process, so I put it off.
I’ve been hesitant to trust anyplace that claims to be an authority on the quality of things. When the Certified Guaranty Company popped up eight years ago and began grading comics and sealing them in air-tight cases, they shook up the way that the world collected. Suddenly, people couldn’t read AND collect comics - they had to make a choice. While it ensured definite, inspected quality for buyers of ‘collectible’ comics, any comics that went ungraded dropped significantly in value - and grading was not an inexpensive process. Today, the price rests between $20 and $80 per issue that you’d like graded, so unless your comic is worth a few thousand dollars, the investment usually defeats itself immediately. Of course, you can wait 50 years and it might pay off, and they’ll be well-preserved between now and then, but for an industry that made it well into the 1960s by selling 25-cent comic books, it’s a bit incongruous and materialistic.
So, I didn’t pursue any kind of official verification on her signature. What I did manage to do was a good deal of my own investigating. I knew that someone would appreciate the book far more than I could, and leaving it to collect dust in a closet was no place for something that might be a valuable cultural artifact. So, in need of a few bucks and a few inches of space, I sold it on eBay.
The key to selling items of questionable veracity on eBay is to not make any unrealistic claims. Honesty is always the best policy. Never sell something with a chip in it and hope that the buyer doesn’t notice until they can no longer place a PayPal claim against you. My own research revealed that Ayn Rand had signed other copies of this book that HAD been verified by bibliophiles and authorities greater than myself.
Not only were these other books signed, but they were signed in the exact same place as my copy. The signature in my copy was clear and in blue ballpoint pen. Since the book was published in 1961, and ballpoint pens were introduced to the US in 1945, everything matched up so far. The signature also appeared confident. While it was entirely POSSIBLE that someone was just mimicking her signature on the title page, the strokes betrayed a kind of casualness in writing the name, which also displayed many of the handwriting traits found in other examples of her signature from this time period.
It was amateur detective work, absolutely, but it was enough to sell the eBay auction with. With very clear claims of ‘proceed at your own risk’ and ‘this is what I’ve found’ and ‘here are other examples’, the auction passed muster. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere for a while, but a last-minute bidding war drove it up to around $250, if I recall correctly. It was nowhere near the thousands of bucks fetched by other signed first editions, but it was a very welcome price for a potential forgery - and in a book that once belonged to a library and was filled with underlines, too.
Could I be a thousandaire if I took the time to verify it? Very possibly. It’s also very possible that the book would be proven worthless - something that I left for the next owner to determine, with no regrets. The first edition Stuart Little in my closet will probably provide even more adventures in bibliophilia… if I ever want to part with it.
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Article Tags: autograph, Ayn Rand, books, Certified Guaranty Company, first edition, For the New Intellectual================
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