Posted by Jerry Silverman on April 13, 1999 at 17:02:17:
In Reply to: Re: Some Irrational(?) Thoughts posted by Steve Price on April 13, 1999 at 16:04:07:
: Dear Folks,
: Well, maybe it's irrational for rug collectors to behave the way they do, but this is part of being a collector, isn't it?
: Consider book collectors (and I know that one's out there watching). They'll pay a huge premium for a first edition. I'm no book collector, so I was happy to buy a contemporary edition of Darwin's "Origin of Species" some years ago. It has the same words as the 1859 edition had, but cost very little (publisher didn't even have to pay royalties!). See, I bought it for the words. Book collectors buy it for different reasons, and pay big bucks for fragile copies with yellow pages that are hard to read. Go figure. By comparison, rug collectors are pillars of mental health. Then, of course, there's the rug book collectors.
: Steve Price
Hey! Hey! Hey! I thought we were going to keep it nice and salon-like here.
Speaking just for myself (and not any of the other rug book collectors out there), I can say without fear of contradiction that my obsessions are no more impure than standard, garden-variety rug collectors. The objects of my collecting interest are, with a couple dozen boringly common exceptions, significantly rarer than nearly all 19th century and later rugs. And I would pay a destitute widow-woman $5 for a box of 19th century rug books without a qualm - just like any driven rug collector would if she had a mint bird-tree asmalyk. I think I've said all this with my tongue firmly in cheek - at least I think I have.
(Maybe it's time for a Salon on the subject of "Morality, Ethics, and Rug-Collecting: Fantasy or Illusion?")
-Jerry-