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Digest – May-June 2023
Manuscript Digest: May – June 2023 – This complimentary e-digest, now published bi-monthly, covers significant acquisitions and sales, manuscripts lost and found, rare books and ephemera, document conservation, and more news in this digest […]
Recent Posts
Stuart Embury – Haitian Presidential Material
Document signed by Jean-Pierre Boyer, president of Haiti from 1818 to 1843 Haitian Presidential Material Stuart Embury, MD My Passion One of my passions in life is medical volunteer work in Haiti. I have gone to Haiti each of the last 40 years, leading teams of volunteers. Along [...]
Interview: Road Trip – Indiana Historical Society
Road Trip: Indiana Historical Society Allen Ottens Perhaps as you’re reading this piece, you can hear some familiar tune faintly in the background. Maybe it’s the beguiling strains of “Begin the Beguine” or the rousing “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” Whichever it is, it’s likely coming from the Cole Porter Room in [...]
How to Weed Your Attic: Is it History or Junk
How to Weed Your Attic Elizabeth H. Dow At the closing dinner of the Manuscript Society’s most recent annual meeting, trustee Elizabeth H. Dow gave us a capsule version of her latest book, How to Weed Your Attic: Getting Rid of Junk without Destroying History, coauthored with Lucinda P. Cockrell. [...]
Quarantine: A Collector’s Story of Discovery
Quarantine: A Collector’s Story Stuart P. Embury, MD I’ve come to believe that the members of the Manuscript Society might have an advantage during these trying times. This hiatus has given collectors the opportunity to devote additional attention to their holdings. Just before the onset of the pandemic, I purchased [...]
Rendell Collection on Forgery to Grolier Club
Forging History: The Detection of Forged Historical Manuscripts From The Grolier Club: March 2021, New York The Grolier Club Library is pleased to announce the receipt of a major gift, the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting, which is the most important and comprehensive collection on the [...]
Resources Available: Auctions, Values, Catalogs
Manuscript Society members are always looking for an item to complete a collection. A letter, an image, a photograph, it does not matter. What will be a fair price for the sought after piece? What about the provenance? Where can I find many different catalogs? It has always been a [...]
One Really Bad Egg and a Visit to Calling Cards
Book Reviews: It is all about education. Whether you collect books or autographs or both, the educated collector is the savvy collector. Just ask Bill Butts. Every year a stream of reference works, how-tos, exhibition catalogs, bibliographies, and memoirs useful to collectors come on the market. Few receive scant attention [...]





