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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> I do love the beauty in old volumes, the leather,the rag paper, the copper
> engravings and chromolithograths.  But, the ideas -- I can find , most ,
> now, on the internet .  The computer is cheap, and takes little space.

I have several old books, mostly on the early design of the reaper and the
resulting fights over patents and estates.  They are great to read and the
information is often available only in those books.  I have an 1892 reprint
of an 1860s pamphlet that was used to show the inverter of the reaper was
Robert McCormick in the court case against Cyrus McCormick's estate.  I also
have an 1850s book on the Obed Hussey and Bell reapers.  

I also have some very early copies of both the "ABC and XYZ of beekeeping"
and "The hive and the Honey Bee".  Fascinating reading of the knowledge and
problems of beekeeping around WWI.  The sections on the legal problems of
bees and horses makes you realize that they had a different set of
challenges then.

I bought them many years ago and some have astounded me in their increase in
value.

Here in the trailer I have an 1897 copy of Ropp's Commercial Calculator.
http://www.nzeldes.com/HOC/RoppCalc.htm

While looking for information on the above book I discovered that Google has
copies of the American Bee Journal online.  This 1894 issue gives away the
Ropp's as a premium and has an article on stingless bees from Costa Rica.
Interesting in light of the Africanized Honeybees from Brazil.

http://books.google.com/books?id=1WZaAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA578&lpg=PA578&dq=%22ropp%
27s+commercial+calculator%22&source=bl&ots=7EPxJjpCl0&sig=wARkNQDr5g4T_AXRvP
_RI0rqWhA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA29,M1

I have a friend who does high end book binding and restoration.  Every time
I go visit he digs out something for me to see.  One time he had a medieval
chained book.  Another time he had the complete set of photographs of the
front line in October of 1918.  He makes storage boxes for rare books and
one time he showed me a complete set of signed books by Ted Geisel.  Mr
Geisel rarely signed his books, these came from a neighbor of his in La
Jolla.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html