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September 12, 2007
Our estimate was only wrong by 160 million pounds
Cardiff City council appear to have offered a tender to sell all their treasured antiquarian book collections. As all local government officers know, these tenders have to be carefully prepared and scrutinised in accordance with European law. Cardiff estimated the sale value to be one hundred and sixty three million pounds
That amount of money raised eyebrows even in the darkest corners of the murky world of book dealing. Honest auctioneers all over the world, if they exist, wherever they might be found, were put on the alert. Here might be some wonderful treasures and of course a few Christmas lunches etc etc.
Middlemen were duly sent out to investigate-- only eventually and sheepishly to be told that the printed and published estimate had proved to be slightly adrift. All those who had signed and countersigned the detailed plans and procedures had not noticed that the figure was marginally at error. It was wrong, allegedly, by one hundred and sixty million pounds. Never mind. It's only hard earnedd (Welsh) tax payers' money, allegedly.
Posted by Tim Coates at September 12, 2007 1:23 PM
Comments
Alarming and fascinating. Are there any more details anywhere yet? This should cause a stir in all newspapers.
And, of course, if that Council ever did get the full worth of those books, the proceeds would be soon gone, nothing to show for it.
I was startled to obtain at a reasonable price a Halliford Edition of Thomas Love Peacock which had belonged to Harvard. I thought if Harvard is getting rid of Peacock, civilzation is at an end, but it turns out to have two more sets of this.
So a little bit of Harvard has come to Hove.
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at September 12, 2007 2:20 PM
Does anyone have a complete edition of The Borough by George Crabbe? (A book, not on the internet) To buy-- but cheaply, I don't want a valuable antique. Tim
Posted by: tim at September 12, 2007 6:02 PM
Tim,
You may be after an 'antique' version, but the
Dodo Press have a print on demand copy quite cheap via abebooks, if you are happy with a relatively modern edition...
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=846466349&searchurl=an=george+crabbe&sortby=3&sts=t&tn=the+borough&x=0&y=0
Also available from Amazon
Posted by: Pete at September 12, 2007 7:26 PM