The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 13, March 30, 2003, Article 9

MINE, MINE, ALL MINE

  Martin Purdy writes: "Two different anecdotes on the subject -
  the trader in the first story is NOT me, by the way.

  It would probably be a question of vendor's bad luck in most
  cases, depending on the purchaser's conscience.  I know of
  a case where a pair of valuable banknotes were found tucked
  in a stamp album that a trader bought, and neither parties were
  aware that the notes were there. I may be wrong, but I think
  the original vendor still doesn't know about it ...

  I was sorting through some non-numismatic books a while
  back and found I had two identical copies of one title, so
  thought I would discard whichever was in the worse condition.
  I flicked through them to check the content of the pages, and
  found an uncirculated Australian $100 bill inside one of them.
  Not treasure trove, sadly - I had put the note there myself
  when on holiday in Melbourne, as I needed somewhere to
  keep it flat, and had completely forgotten about it by the time
  I got home.  Had it gone to a book sale and sold for the 20
  cents that the book is probably worth, it would have been
  my loss and rightly so for being so careless!"

  David F. Fanning of Fanning Books and Editor-in-Chief of our
  print journal, The Asylum, writes: "I'm used to giving my opinion
  unsolicited, so the opportunity to give my two cents in response
  to an actual solicitation is too good to pass up.

  Regarding inserted items in books, the buyer owns whatever it
  is. Unequivocally. Indubitably. There may be occasions where
  ethics calls for returning found items to a prior owner (love
  letters, say), but it's up to the buyer, I think. I don't care if
  it's an 1804 dollar: the seller has to know what he or she is selling.
  If the seller hasn't flipped through the book, that's being lazy.
  It's as if I buy a rare die variety off an established coin dealer
  too lazy or dumb to attribute the thing: my gain, his loss, no
  tears.

  It'd be different if I found something really good in a book I
  bought off someone who wasn't a coin or book dealer (the
  widow of a collector, say);  then I'd feel obligated to work
  something out with them."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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