Posted by Erol Abit on April 14, 1999 at 17:15:38:
In Reply to: Re: Some Irrational(?) Thoughts posted by Jerry Silverman on April 13, 1999 at 17:02:17:
: : 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-
Dear Steve,
Book collecting interest might have begun because of some deep researches, for example, research on some very small notes of Ferma in his book. He wrotes in the corner of his draft paper "the rest, i.e the proof of the theorem is an easy job". The Ferma theorem hasn't been proved yet. I think book collectors were researchers at the beginning rather than being collectors. What about rug collectors? Are there some collectors who are interested in "old rugs in bad conditions" to do scientific researches on them like some mathematicans studying on Ferma's theorem and on his book? Allright, I may be going off-topic.
Regards,
Erol