Valuable Objects Fall from Old Books

eBay seller "tapestries" found this early photo of prize fighters inside of an old book. Things that tumble out of old books, such as this photo, are the stuff of legend.

Seasoned booksellers call them flyaways. I recently asked eBay booksellers to tell me about the flyaways they've found inside old books. Here's what some of them had to say:

imagine.ink: One of my most interesting finds inside a book were two envelopes addressed to Mr. Solomon Gray. One held a signed contract dated 1923 from a music publisher for sheet music written by Mr. Gray called "Quitting Blues." The other envelope held two copyright registration cards from the Library of Congress: one for "Quitting Blues" (1923) and the other for another song he wrote called, "Naughty, Naughty Mister Moon" (1922). I would love to find the actual sheet music for those songs to go along with this ephemera, but I haven't been successful.

bookbiz: A wonderful photo, about 3x5, of poet Robinson Jeffers standing in front of his house. The inscription on the back indicated that the photo's owner had taken it himself while visiting Jeffers. It was in an early printing of a Jeffers volume.

satnrose: I found an Abraham Lincoln mourning ribbon in an old Bible that I sold on eBay for over $400.

pk_nik: I found a love letter in a novel written in 1908, the letter was dated 1910 and it is so romantic.

fine.books: Two scraps from a manuscript of Isidorus Hispalensis' Etymologiæ; second half of the ninth century.

If you're in the market for a used book, or maybe a rare flyaway, check out these friendly eBayers, and tell them the ephemera blog sent you.

Comments

[gary]

Thats pretty interesting. I have litteraly a ton of old books. I think I am gonna start going through them...just in case. I might find a hidden gem somewhere...nice tips

[Benajmin L. CLark]

Last night at an FOL sale I found one for the record books. Book published 1889, in cloth with a shaken spine and hinges starting. There seemed to be a good sized pebble or something in the spine. I tried to peek down the back strip-- something was down there alright, but I couldn't see what. I delicately prodded it with my Parker Jotter popping the invader loose. It clunked out on the shelf-- a chocolate chip. Whole and unsullied. Weird.

[Lauren]

I collect bookmarks, and the one that started it came out of an old book.

It was a wonderfully lazy Saturday in the famous Bart's Books in Ojai, California. I was browsing the shelves when I noticed an old olive-colored book entitled The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field. Being fond of both old volumes and books about books, I pulled it off the shelf only to have it fall open to pages 55-56. Tucked neatly at the beginning of the chapter entitled “Baldness and Intellectuality,” a bookmark particularly apropos to its location, sat quietly: hair. Specifically, a clump of golden brown hair, male from the length of it. It had lain undisturbed for so long it had even left visual stigmata on the page under it. I was enchanted and remain so.

It is the only bookmark I own that stays in the book and the only one made of hair. But that experience has grown into a collection of more than 1,200 bookmarks, mostly antique. However, it remains the only hair bookmark among the gold, silver, brass, cardboard, paper, leather, silk, knitted, burlap and other types.

[PortalLibro]

Other histories - Things found in the Books
We invite you to take part of the project of more singular rescue of the history: Whenever you find a letter, a photo, a ticket of train (... etc.) inside a used book, writes to info@portallibro.com.ar, and send his image close to the particular signs (in what book you found the object - title, author-, how this copy came to your power and the commentary that you want to realize).
We are arming assembling the first database of Objects Found in the Books. We believe that it is the best way of producing honoring to the yesterday readers and to whom, to diary, they discover his histories. We wait to possess your help!