Expect the Unexpected?

[unforth]

So this morning, I sat down to eat my breakfast - pancakes. I wanted to read, but I didn't have a free hand, so I grabbed the only book I had nearby that looked like it would stay open without me holding it open. This was a copy of "The Cat in the Hat" that I picked up at goodwill yesterday because, well, it's a good book to have and I didn't already own a copy. I turned to the first page, and saw an inscription in neat script - apparently, this was a Christmas gift to three children in 1986. That's sort of sad, I thought to myself, they didn't keep it. My eye traced casually over the rest of the page...and in the lower left hand corner of that page was a signature - Dr. Seuss. It was in different ink and penmanship than the inscription (so not an inscribed copy, whatever) and was sort of sloppy - and I thought to myself, naw, no way, some kid just wrote Dr. Seuss in sharpie on this page.

Turn to the internet (my breakfast sits getting cold on the table) and find a couple facsimile's of Dr. Seuss's signature...and they match. A signed copy! Dude! Turn to abebooks.com to try to figure out if this is worth anything. Surely not, I tell myself, Dr. Seuss probably signed zillions of books, just like most modern famous authors, even the ones who've been dead for a while. (yeah, their zombies still sign copies of their books, that's right)

Yesterday, at Goodwill, I spent $1.99 on a book that is apparently worth at least $450. I can't be sure yet, because in all my hunting online I could only find two equivalent copies, and one was $450 and the other was $750.

Pardon me while I recover from shock and try to decide just what the hell to do with this book! I'm still not sure I believe it, truth to tell...maybe I'm just imagining it...maybe it's not a real signature...but...but...dude!

Comments

[ex-arekin.livejournal.com]

Few years back my dad pulled a few books out an old funeral home that was falling apart and managed to find a signed copy of a book by F.D.R. In our desire to authenticate the signature I learned a few things.

First get a magnifying glass, look closely at the signature. You want to look for bleeding arround the signature, this is from the ink soaking into the page, and means that the siganture wasnt printed with the book. Some people would say "well duh" but on some types of paper it can be difficult to tell.

Next look at he ink in the signature itself, it you can see lines in it (following the signature) that means it was a hand signed book, if not its had a signature stamp used on it.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice! I don't think the second step would work, cause it was signed with a sharpie, but I'll take a look for the first one. :)