What’s a Book Worth? Wow!

A dozen years ago I posted a note here that Holling’s Sun and Smoke, A Book of New Mexico sold on 
the secondary market for $235.  Fifty copies of the handmade book were printed and published in 
1923.  Today, four copies are in university libraries and a fifth was sold to a rare book dealer a dozen 
years ago.   And a sixth has been found.
 
Sun & Smoke was a printing arts project while Holling was at the Art Institute of Chicago.  He drew on 
the months when he was traveling through New Mexico, witnessing the burgeoning Taos art 
environment and working on a ranch where he and his wife Lucille were staying.  He wrote the verses, 
and carved wood blocks to illustrate the poems.  Then personally printed and bound the work in a 6-1/2
 by 10-1.4 inch book.
 
A news item I posted on Facebook in 2012 caught my eye and I decided to check the value of this 
book in today’s market.  To my surprise, I discovered an art dealer in San Francisco  was offering Sun 
And Smoke for $1,750!  

My questions went to Joan Hoffman at the Holling museum.   She

immediately sent the museum’s newsletter from April 2012 describing the
discovery of the sixth (seventh?) copy:

“Recently a copy of Sun and Smoke was found in a Livingston, Montana, thrift shop by an alert employee.  Heather Heath ‘doesn’t know how the book came to the Community Closet, or when.’  Had Holling not included on the last page that only 50 copies of this book had been printed, Heather might not have given the book much thought.  Also, had Holling used his real name at the time, Holling Allison Clancy,  (It was not legally changed until two years later.) it probably would have been harder to track this author’s past.

“Fortunately, Heather was curious and persistent.  She found a website (perhaps the Holling blog) with information that Holling had graduated from Leslie High School in Michigan.  A call was made to the Leslie Chamber of Commerce president and she was referred to Steve Hainstock, past president of the Leslie Historical Society and founder of the Leslie Historical Museum. The connection was made.

“Heather felt the book should go to the Leslie Historical Museum.  The Community Closet’s Board of Directors also thought the Leslie Historical Museum would be a good home for Holling’s book and they generously decided to give it to the museum as a gift. What a precious gift it is!  We did not expect to ever have a copy of Holling’s first and rarest book.

“How rare is Sun and Smoke?   I know of only six other existing copies.  According to WorldCat, a national database, there are four copies in libraries scattered around the U.S. – Univ. of Arizona; Univ. of California, Los Angeles; Northwestern Univ., IL and Miami Univ. OH. One was sold from a private collection in 2007 and another is, as far as I know, still in a private collection in Oregon.”

This little story has redeemed my faith in fortunate discoveries.  And in the monetary value of his books.