This is a German hymn book printed in Germantown by Christoph Saur in 1763. It was printed for the Reformed Church but, according to Mennonite Encyclopedia, was also used by the Mennonites before they printed their own German hymn book. A stack of these unused books was found in the attic of the Groffdale Mennonite Church in 1925. I suppose they were retired to the attic after the Mennonite hymn book was printed in 1804. The writing on a flyleaf says the book was purchased by Elisa Barbara ? of Heidelburg Township on November 18, 1770 for 6 shillings and 6 pence.
The surname of this lady has not been deciphered but when I get a chance I will show it to my German expert and hopefully he can tell me what it is. At any rate, she probably lived just a few miles from here. Names of later owners written on other pages are Jacob Loop and Henry Bowman.
The person who listed this book on ebay was from Colorado and obviously did not know what it was. When I saw the bid was only $26, I couldn't let the opportunity pass. I have seen them sell for $1200. This one is probably not worth quite that much because the back cover is not attached to the spine, but it still is worth a lot more than I had to pay to get it. Of course, I paid a little more than $26 for it, but my winning bid was still a bargain price. Now I have to decide if I am going to sell it and make a large profit or keep it and let my children inherit the profits. I doubt I'll ever get another one this cheap.
1 comment:
You should sell it. For two reasons. the first is you will have the satisfaction of knowing how much you actually made on it, and your children will appreciate inheriting the money. Secondly, if you don't sell it, after you are dead, your children will look at it and say, "ach vell, here is another one of Mom's old books". They will probably list it on ebay and sell it for $27.00.
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