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Originally Posted by thinreadline
Very nice edition Jim . On abe at the moment there is an 1880s signed copy in a contemporary Indian binding for sale at nearly £8,000 if you fancy treating yourself  ! |
Thanks TRL! Wow, that's pretty amazing. Its funny though, I've never been able to put monetary value on these things. I got this copy many years ago, B.C. (=before computers) when finding books was through book stores and search services, and regular mail took forever.
I learned very young that to be a collector of antique arms, the most important thing was books. One of my favorite early references was Burton's "Book of the Sword" (1884), but I never got an original. Still as a young collector, he was a kind of hero to me, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
Many years later, incredibly I found the location of his manuscript for the Chatto & Windus (London publishers) with whom he arranged to write a book, not on fencing, but on the history of the sword.
It was in California at the Huntington museum, and somehow I was able to gain an invitation of the curator to visit and see the manuscript. I will never forget going through the guards, and being ushered to a private room, where with white gloves, they brought in several boxes.
Here were the yellowed page of pencil written (in the tiniest printing ever) notes with line drawings pinned (no staples in those days) to the pages.
I was actually trembling as I held and read these very notes by the man I had so much admired, just as they were when he wrote them well over a century before.
It was early when I realized I was far more a historian than a collector, and instead of focusing on buying swords (though I occasionally did) for me it was finding books. The same quest for the true history of these weapons held by Egerton, Burton, Castle, Stone and others became mine as well.....and gave me a life of adventure in the study of history, with the weapons themselves being my guides.
I have always felt pretty lucky in that, and especially to have had you and so many others here who share in that quest over these years.
Just some grateful nostalgia