Herschel V. Jones: Documented Obsession
- by Bruce E. McKinney
A son's memorial to his father's passion.
One clue to Mr. Jones roots is found in volume II of his Adventures in Americana. It is item No. 234, John Hombeck Bevier's The Indians, a very rare pamphlet published in Rondout, a nearby place to where he grew up. This piece, in his collection, enjoyed equality with his Columbus Letter. No other collector has valued it as highly. He went far and rose high but never forgot his own history.
He had the possibly good fortune to die in 1928 before the depression befell America and thus did not know the sorry financial outcome of this his final collection. His Americana library was estimated by John Fleming and Edwin Wolf, in their biography of Rosenbach, to have cost Mr. Jones a million dollars. Dr. Rosenbach acquired it from his son, Carl, in 1939 for $225,000.
If you are wondering what a man of exceptional means with an appetite for acquisition could purchase in the 1920's please search this database of all 1,746 items listed in his check list.