Money in Books, Part 1
Dennis: In a Facebook group for sellers and collectors of vintage books, member Barbara S. recently asked, “What is the most interesting thing anyone has found in an old book?” That question unearthed a treasure trove of fascinating finds!
There were things that are neat, but not unexpected, like old movie tickets and pressed four-leaf clovers.
Some were random and delightful—items likely used as bookmarks because they happened to be nearby: “A bunch of yellowed newspaper clippings about getting rid of red ants.” A perfectly preserved Scoutmaster I.D. from the Bronx, 1946.
Some were sentimental: “A prayer an elderly family member wrote to honor and mark the end of World War II.” “A Christmas card signed by Ben Carson.”
Some finds were touching, like a Civil War regimental history book in which the original owner traced on a map in red ink, marking where his friend was shot: “I drug him to here. He died here.”
Some could be best described as dubious: “Someone I know found a letter written by Karl Marx.”
Some left-behind treasures were from authors, like a letter from John Fowles in a copy of his book The French Lieutenant’s Woman, to an English teacher, “explaining some literary trope he had used in the novel.”
Some finds were connected to famous Americans: A card from the funeral of a baseball player, with an autograph from Muhammad Ali. A postcard checkup reminder from a dentist to Frank Sinatra.
Donna D. found a copy of A Cinema of Loneliness, Robert Kolker’s classic study of contemporary American film, in a thrift shop in Cathedral City, California. It was inscribed by director Oliver Stone to his mother—“Here’s a testament to my time in Hollywood, my time in the sun.”
Some reported finds were humorous: “Jimmy Hoffa.”
One collector remembered a “very pretty” girl he fancied. He knew she liked the Bronte sisters, so he gave her a set of antique Bronte books he’d just bought. “She opened them up and all these hand-carved ivory and wooden bookmarks fell out.” He wanted to ask for the bookmarks, but “I couldn’t without seeming like a tightwad.” (I’m sure the girl’s beauty was a factor, too.)
Some book-lovers found valuable collectibles that they later sold, like Timothy H., who said, “Tucked inside a theater program from Chicago was the lady’s ticket stub for the show (December 31, 1949), and the envelope that once held her train ticket to get to the show. The envelope was empty, but still a valuable railroad collectible, which I sold for $55.”
[A railroad envelope found inside a theater program, sold by Timothy H. for $55.]
Helen C. recalled finding in a book a 1960s certificate for a free bottle of perfume, from a shop in Paris. That book led her to what she describes as a great treasure hunt: “I finally went to Paris last year. I took it with me and though the shop was gone a new one was there. The previous owner long since passed. I met the new owner. I showed her and she gave me a lovely little bottle of perfume. I wear it for special occasions.”
And then there are the books with money.
Some recollections were vague: “Old Mozambique money and stamps.”
Others were more detailed, but without specific numismatic information: “A $100 bill.” Paul B. remembered “A bank envelope with $500 in it.”
Some included date and denomination information: “Ten Uncirculated $50 bills from 1968.” (There actually weren’t any Series of 1968 $50 Federal Reserve Notes, but if they’re from 1969, and if they’re truly Uncirculated, they could easily be worth $100 to $200 apiece, or more.)
Some memories involved questionable “treasures” that coin dealers often see when heirs bring in their relatives’ stuff. “My grandmother’s Bible had Oakland Raiders tickets from 1960 and half a dozen Confederate bills.” (Whitman Publishing and other hobby publishers printed huge quantities of facsimile Confederate currency in the 1960s, and we can safely assume these were among those.) However, I suspect the CSA items in the following group are more likely to have been authentic: “A Confederate $5 bill, a Confederate stamp, a bunch of Women’s Temperance Union papers, and a photo from the Spanish-American War.”
And while paper money makes a better bookmark than coins, Marco A.-S. (who’s started a collection of the “stuff” he’s found in books) discovered some silver coins in the inner part of the spine of a circa-1900 tome.
Steve, I’ve bought hundreds of volumes from Goodwill and other thrift shops and used-book stores. I’m still waiting to find an old $1,000 bill that Scrooge McDuck used as a bookmark. Have you ever found anything interesting tucked into a book?
Steve: Dennis! Beyond once finding a Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve Note as a bookmark, I’ve yet to find a physical treasure within the pages of a book. But this makes me think of a term I encountered recently: a shelfie.
Apparently, “shelfies” are when books are visible in backgrounds of photos on Instagram, short videos on TikTok or Zoom backgrounds, leading to a design trend called “bookshelf wealth,” at least according to an article by Edwin Heathcote in the February 11, 2024, edition of the Financial Times.
A key part of a “shelfie” is making sure that the titles are books that you might have actually read, so that they don’t look like props in an Ikea store setup and there’s an area within the second-hand book trade known as “books-by-the-foot” that puts similarly sized books together for their decorative value. I’d be curious if anyone ever explored the decorative value of a set of Whitman’s “Red Book.”
Heathcote explained, “Books convey an authenticity that other applied finishes do not,” when considering books in the decorative sphere, explaining, “The knowledge they are filled with, the words and ideas they contain, give them a depth with which even the finest hand-blocked or gold wallpaper cannot compete.” The use of books as a background today is not unlike wealthy merchants in America’s Gilded Age shipping over entire libraries from Europe to add a bit of learned culture to their home.
So, this is a broad connection: but you asked about finding things in the interior of a book, while I considered books as parts of an interior. But I’ll still gladly find a book with a $1,000 bill left by Scrooge McDuck.
Be on the lookout for another installment of Collecting Friends next month or subscribe here and never miss a post! In the meantime, explore beautiful coins from the ANA's Edward C. Rochette Money Museum Virtual Exhibits.
Hello! And welcome to the ANA’s blog series, “Collecting Friends.”
We decided to approach this much like a conversation between friends. One of us starts with a topic, then the other responds. Simple as that. Along those lines, we’ll keep the tone conversational as much as possible.
We both write about coins professionally, and will keep our relative style guides in our writing. For Dennis, former Publisher at Whitman Publishing, that means capitalizing “Proof” and italicizing Red Book and never saying anything bad about Ken Bressett, who’s awesome anyway.
For Steve, who’s written with Coin World for 15 years, it means Winged Liberty Head dime instead of “Mercury” dime, and similar nuances and oddities. And, it means writing A Guide Book of United States Coins (better known as the “Red Book”).
Both of us started collecting when we were little, introduced to coins by a chance encounter with an old coin that sparked our curiosity. One of Steve’s interests is coin valuation, and he gravitates towards the intersection of art and coins. Dennis enjoys medals and world coins, and studying modern U.S. coins in the context of older series, what came before.
We met in 2012 at the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Philadelphia at an event hosted by the Austrian Mint where there was both a Ben Franklin and a Betsy Ross impersonator. We’ve become great friends in the past decade. We even were appointed together to sit on the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee starting in 2016, but Steve resigned soon after he was appointed to accept a full-time job at the Treasury Department while Dennis was re-appointed in 2020.
We taught a course together on numismatic publishing and writing a few years ago at the Summer Seminar, and while life has gotten in the way of us teaching another class, we jumped at our friend Caleb’s suggestion that we write a column. We hope you enjoy it!
The American Numismatic Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and encouraging people to study and collect coins and related items. The Association serves collectors, the general public, and academic communities with an interest in numismatics.
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