• Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - November - 2013 Issue

How One Book Collector's Crusade Succeeded in Changing a Law

Part of the proposed statute stricken from the books.

Sometimes when you really believe in something, believe in it to the extent some might think it an obsession, you can achieve things few would have thought possible. This is the story of Richard Hopp, an unusual book collector from southern California, and his quest to protect book collectors and small-time sellers from the clenches of a law that legally could have turned them into participants in organized crime, simply for doing what collectors and small-time sellers do. Perhaps Richard Hopp was inspired by the great books in his quest to change California legislation, but it seems more like his guiding literary work was The Little Engine that Could.

 

Richard Hopp ran into the long arm of the law a few years ago when he was charged and convicted in Los Angeles under a statute designed to prevent the fencing of stolen goods. Some pawnbrokers and flea market sellers undoubtedly buy stolen goods off the street for pennies on the dollar and resell them for dimes. In the book field, the source of supply for such goods is often public libraries. Street people, perhaps feeding a drug habit, remove books from a library, sell them cheaply to an unscrupulous small-time seller, and repeat the process ad infinitum. The seller knows darn well the books are stolen, but is insulated from the crime by buying them “legally” before reselling.

 

The result is that many jurisdictions have enacted laws that apply to such small-time sellers, requiring licensing and such, and affording police the right to seize merchandise if they think there is reasonable cause to believe it may be stolen. Such regulation, while unfortunate in its adding burdens to legitimate merchants, is not an unreasonable demand to stem the enormous amount of fencing that enables a comparably large amount of theft to take place. It is the price of security. Prevent thieves from being able to resell stolen merchandise and you remove the incentive to steal it in the first place.

 

However, Mr. Hopp was not a merchant. The charges presented no evidence he ever sold a single book or made a dime. There was only evidence that he bought books, a charge of which every book collector on earth is guilty. Why was such a prosecution brought in the first place? Evidently, the authorities concluded that Mr. Hopp must be a dealer in books because of the way he purchased them. He would set up a buying, rather than selling booth at flea markets. He would advertise on places like Craig's List, seeking books. Authorities concluded he must be reselling books if he bought in bulk this way, though they never had a shred of evidence he made a sale. Mr. Hopp explained that he purchased this way for his own use, keeping those books he liked and giving away those he did not.

 

Obviously, authorities were confounded by this answer and refused to believe it. In some countries, people are convicted and sent off to gulags based on what the police think you are doing without a need for evidence. Fortunately, America is not such a country. When Mr. Hopp was convicted for not obtaining the proper license, the case was made on the technical reading of the statute, which required licensing of those in the “business of buying or selling books.” Surely the intent was to apply to those “buying and selling” books, not just one or the other, as no one was going after the well-heeled book collectors of Los Angeles and charging them for unlicensed book buying. Mr. Hopp was obviously targeted based on unproven assumptions.

 

On appeal, the conviction was thrown out. The appeals court said that regardless of the “or's” and “and's,” he was not engaged in a business, “business” requiring a profit motive and there was no evidence Mr. Hopp ever made a penny from his book buying “business.”

 

All of which brings us to legislation recently proposed in the State of California. It is designed to bring some statewide order to these issues, and, for the most part, Mr. Hopp is satisfied with the proposals. However, there was one section that set him off with the same tenacity he pursued his own case a few years ago. Mr. Hopp is not wanting for passion. It included a section that defined “criminal profiteering activity.” It was filled with what you might expect – murder, mayhem, arson, child pornography, robbery, pimping, extortion, felonious assault, human trafficking, and other gruesome crimes. Down at the end was a section that included “buying, selling, trading, accepting for sale on consignment, or auctioning secondhand tangible personal property.” Under the statute, actions by small-time secondhand sellers could become part of a “pattern of criminal profiteering activity,” and the behavior could be considered “organized crime.”

 

One can hear the agitation in Mr. Hopp's voice as he discusses the legislation. You might say no one would ever prosecute a small-time bookseller or collector as a member of “organized crime” for not correctly dotting every “i” in their licensing requirements, but then again, who would have thought anyone would ever prosecute someone for buying books?

 

Once again, Mr. Hopp was zealous in pursuing his beliefs. It didn't matter that this time the case no longer targeted him personally. He hired a lawyer anyway, repeatedly contacted state legislators, and made several appeals against the legislation. He did not feel he was gaining much respect from the legislators. It was not a pleasant process. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, the legislation was passed without the offending material. It was struck from the legislation. Small-time vendors and book collectors in California will not have to fear being carted off to prison for organized crime like some mafia don. It wasn't easy, but you can fight city hall. As Mr. Hopp commented, “I'll never be known for what I stopped, but everyone in the world would know if I didn't.” So rest easy, California book collectors. Mr. Hopp is looking out for you, even if you are completely unaware he exists.

 

Or, as Richard Hopp often concludes his messages, “Keep well.”


Posted On: 2013-11-01 17:18
User Name: unclebooks

Thank you Mr. Hopp, Thank you. I hope we all know your efforts have pushed back at the tide of "benevolence" that will inevitably consume us all in the guise of laws designed to "protect" us. We even applaud as our rights sail away. For now you have stopped a small part of the slide down the slippery slope.
Kudos to you, Micaela Pierce


Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
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