Book Value

Over the weekend I overheard two conversations, entirely different on one level, about the same thing on another.

These struck me as important because I’m in the process of proofreading the manuscript of my book A Dirty Old Man Goes To The Dogs. In a few weeks that book should be ready of publication in both print and e-book formats. Therefore, Ginny and I recently engaged in long conversations ourselves about the value of my work. This is a long-standing topic for us.

I overheard the guy in the restaurant not because I was eavesdropping, but because he was talking to a man in a different booth. Why they didn’t sit together I don’t know. Because they were neglecting their wives during the meal to talk across space with one another, I suppose.

One couple already sat in a booth when Ginny and I got to the restaurant. A bit later this other couple arrived. I saw them pull in the parking lot in a tricked-out super-sized, duel-cab pickup, and I noticed the fine quality of the black and white plaid shirt the guy wore when he walked in the door.

This guy explained to his friend at an adjacent table that he bought houses which had been repossessed, patched them up, then rented them out. “The folks that had bought that place were paying over $200,000 for it; in the repo auction, I picked it up for only Forty-Three Five cash,” he boasted.

He laughed at the dilemma of the poor dumb saps losing their home.

He felt gleeful about it.

Their disaster equaled his opportunity.

Nothing immoral or illegal about buying low and selling high. But, somehow I felt the guy was greasy.

When the man at the other table questioned about problems with renters, the entrepreneur boasted about how easy it is to evict people who can’t meet their rent payments. You give them 30 day’s notice, then call in an eviction company. Yes there are companies whose only business is evicting renters. You pay the fee, they put the residents out on the street, change the locks, and hand you the new key. You don’t even have to be on the site at all.

The guy boasted that he’s bought at least one repossessed house a year since 1980 but that recently property values have dropped so much that he makes a killing every month or so now.

Why do I worry about the danger of Hell’s fire for such a man?

If he’s being at all unethical, he did not seem to have a clue about it. Just doing business. Making wise investments. Getting the most value for his money.

Why does my skin crawl hearing him talk?

I feel so sorry for him.

I wonder about his values.

Ginny said I should not be so judgmental; I said, “I’m not judgmental, I’m discerning”.

The other conversation, the one I overheard in the book store, also concerned value.

As I waited my turn in a long line at to get up to the cashier to pay for a history of Amelia Island, a second line of people waited in another line to exchange books for store credit. The two lines crossed.

Busy place that book store. (Although I saw no one buying one of my books).

I noticed a lady in the exchange line. Well-dressed. Heels. Expensive sweater. Look of old Ortega money. Frowning as though worried. Impatient about waiting in line with all these peasants who carried shopping bags or cardboard boxes overflowing with books to exchange.

She herself carried five small books wrapped in white tissue paper.

When she got to the counter I overheard her tell the evaluator about how valuable her books were. “All these are from the 1800s,” she said. “They’ve been in our family for years. I want to sell them now. They just take up space. How much are they worth?”.

The evaluator carefully unwrapped the leather-bound volumes. I could see they were in excellent condition but I could not make out the titles.

He checked for bookplates and autographs.

He consulted his computer.

He carefully re-wrapped the books in the tissue and handed them back to the woman.

“I’m not going to buy these,” he said. “They have no resale value”.

Boy, did she get hot!

She demanded to know why her books were not worth the hundreds or even thousands of dollars as she expected. “These are really old books,” she said. Her voice reeked of suspicion that he was pulling some sort of scam.

Everyone knows old books are worth a lot of money.

“Not these,” he explained. Patiently he told her about what makes a book valuable. Just being old hardly counts. Condition matters (and these were in fine condition). Provenance matters (but these were not autographed).

But the thing that matters most is that someone else will want to buy them.

“I can’t sell these, because no one is likely to want to buy them,” he said.

Again, I could not see the titles but I know the sort of book these were: maybe 1892 Real Estate Values In Collier County, Wisconsin. Or an 1832 edition of Elsie’s Prize Pig by Mrs. Judge Monroe Wombarton—old, but not valuable. They stayed in fine condition for 200 years because no body was interested enough to open the covers for two centuries.

The lady left the store fuming—but there was something else… I felt she was desperate. I felt she only ventured into the unfamiliar venue of a book store because she was short of cash and had heard somewhere that old books might be valuable.

I felt sorry for her.

The two conversations remind me of my own quest for values. I often question the value of my own work. What good is writing a book that hardly anybody reads?

But value resides in what someone is willing to give for a thing…

Or, does it?

Some things have enormous intrinsic value whether the anybody around recognizes it or not.

For instance, I once saw an antique show on tv when a man brought in an American Indian soapstone tobacco pipe which the evaluator said was worth something like $30,000! The guy said that at home he’d been using it as a tack hammer!

And as I recall, one morning in 1844 German scholar Constantine Tischendorf found a novice monk at St. Catherine’s Monastary, Sinai, starting a fire to cook breakfast with torn-out pages from an old book written in uncial Greek. Turned out that Tischendorf discovered the book to be Codex Sinaiticus, widely regarded as the most valuable book in the world!

But, until Tischendorf recognized the value, it had no value.

Fire starter.

Where does that thought take us?

Thinking about this stuff reminds me of what St. Peter said about the value of Jesus Christ He said that Christ is valuable—precious—to those who believe, but that those who do not believe count Christ as worthless, as of no more value than a broken brick laying squished in the mud at some construction site.

All the time I overhear or read words by people who do not seem to value Christ at all. He just does not enter into their value system.

That says nothing about Him; It speaks reams about them.

Treasure is treasure—even if you hammer tacks or boil your morning coffee with it.

If we do not recognize the value, who looses?

St. Peter says it better: “He that believeth on Him shall not be confounded . Unto you therefore which believe He is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence…”