1929-1931 Golden Cockerel Press "The Canterbury Tales"
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GUEST:
I got it when we were cleaning out my parents' home. I knew as a child that my father had gotten these books while he was in the Second World War, over in England. They were just always on the bookshelf, didn't think much about them, but I knew they were important and I brought them.
APPRAISER:
It's a four-volume set, "The Canterbury Tales." It's published by a company called the Golden Cockerel Press. Now, the Golden Cockerel Press is one of the premier Arts and Crafts presses in the world, and they ran from about the 1920s to 1960s. But one of their high points was in the '30s. Now, they were doing classics with beautiful illustrations. This one was done by a man named Eric Gill. He not only did illustrations, he did type design, he did sculpture. But this book took two years to produce. They had to do it from 1929 to 1931, two whole years where they did almost nothing else. It was handmade paper, hand-set type, hand-designed type, hand-bound, and it was also a little bit controversial. Eric Gill was a character, and he didn't always follow all the mores of the time. And you can sort of see from the top illustration that, you know, it was sort of on the borderline of what was acceptable and what wasn't. Now, one of the things that I'll point out about this is on the bindings of the books, it's a cloth binding that you can see, beautifully designed, and then the leather. Now, a lot of times when you see this, it's been kept in such a way that the leather has darkened, tanned. You can see a little spot or two, but not much more than that, so the condition is absolutely beautiful. You had one page here-- I'm going to take this out right now.
GUEST:
Go ahead, by all means.
APPRAISER:
This piece of newsprint...
GUEST:
I didn't even know that was there.
APPRAISER:
Well, you can see that it's... Yes. Just a slight... That's not enough that a collector's really going to care. They'd prefer it wasn't there. If you have a book hand-done, don't put newsprint in it-- that's what will happen. But you also see the beautiful illustrations that they did, and this is considered one of the classic works of the Arts and Crafts movement, by one of the great presses.
GUEST:
I suspected that it was valuable because as a child, it was never down where we could get our hands in it, and it usually was in some kind of bookshelf with a glass door.
APPRAISER:
Has anyone tried to read it, or anyone reading it?
GUEST:
My grandson tried to read it last night as we were getting ready to come here, and he's very intelligent.
APPRAISER:
How old is your grandson?
GUEST:
Fourteen.
APPRAISER:
Fourteen. Well, what I would suggest is, they have reprints of this book. If your grandson really wants to read and see what it's like, maybe read the reprint, because on a book beautifully done like this, one little crack, one little chip can make a world of difference. Beautiful book, great condition. I would say in a retail store, this would be $4,000 to $5,000 at a minimum.
APPRAISER:
For all four books?
GUEST:
For all four books, $4,000 to $5,000. Pop, Pop would... (laughs) But my father had that knack of buying things cheap and hanging onto them.
APPRAISER:
He'd be happy with this? (chuckles)
GUEST:
Oh, yes, yes.
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