Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1906 — Odd Auction Incident. [ARTICLE]

Odd Auction Incident.

“A Pittsburg millionaire once saved me from the commission of a dreadful error,” said an Atlantic City auctioneer. "We put up a lot of secondhand art books, books with colored plates, one rainy day, and among the lot was a set of Audubon’s ‘Birds of America.’ I knew little about books—the useful arts are my line—and I was quite ready to let this set go for $25 when my Pittsburg friend, happening In, bld SSOO. “Of course the books went to him, but after the sale he told me he didn’t want them.. “ ‘Take them back,’ he said, ‘and ship them to New York. You can get $1,500 for this set It is a first edition.’ “Sure enough, the set brought sl,700 in New York two months later. It had been forwarded to me through a shipping clerk’s error, and I’d have let it go for nothing had it not been for the knowledge and kindness of thia Pittsburg millionaire.”