Another factor that determines the value of a sefer is the element of mystique. For example, a siddur was published in Amsterdam with the kabbalistic commentary of Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz, known as the Shelah HaKadosh. There’s a haskamah in the siddur from the Bach, who writes that anyone who prays from this siddur will have his prayers answered. Collectors pay a lot of money for it. The Shelah probably meant that anyone who studies his commentary and adheres to the suggestions will be answered. But people will pay between $20,000 and $30,000 for the siddur.
First editions of chassidic sefarim also command high prices. Chassidim like to have a connection to their rebbes and their dynasties. In the town of Slavuta, Ukraine, Rabbi Moshe Shapiro was the town’s rabbi and printer. He was a descendant of Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, a disciple of the Ba’al Shem Tov. Chassidim view any sefer printed by the descendants of his family as imbued with inherent kedushah. For example, a Tehillim printed in Slavuta could go for $5,000. They are in great demand, especially by Skverer chassidim, who are willing to pay top dollar for them.
How do collectors go about finding rare sefarim?
When I was growing up, there were still sefarim stores on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that sold many out-of-print sefarim. There was a time you could get [these works] at a relatively low price. In Eretz Yisrael today there’s a rapidly growing industry of book dealers selling antique books and manuscripts. There are a lot of sheimos and old sefarim found in many of the old houses in Yerushalayim. I know a book dealer in Israel who finds out when a home is being demolished and makes a deal with the builder to give him entry to the attic before the structure is torn down. He’s discovered many ancient sefarim and letters this way. [He recently discovered] precious items owned by Rabbi Zundel of Salant, who lived in Jerusalem in the mid-1800s. In 1948, when the Old City was destroyed, a number of his sefarim survived and were preserved by members of his family. A recent auction featured letters and articles that belonged to him.
With the advent of the Internet and digitization, does actively building up one’s physical library really make sense?
In the past, if someone needed certain sefarim, he had to go to four or five different libraries. Some were found only at Oxford University or the British Museum in England or at the National Library of Israel at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In America, some of the researchers use the library at Yeshiva University and the Jewish divisions at The New York Public Library and at Harvard University. Harvard has one of the largest collections of Hebrew books – about 60,000 to 70,000 works. The Library of Congress also has a large collection. Nowadays, you can go to a site called Hebrewbooks.org, which has about 50,000 digitized sefarim. One can also purchase CDs containing thousands of sefarim.
However, there is a tremendous advantage to having access to a physical sefer. Not everything is on the Internet, and some people enjoy holding a 300-year-old sefer in their hands; it enables them to feel a greater connection to the author and the time period.
What do you think of those who collect sefarim primarily as a hobby, not for personal study?
They say of collectors in general that it’s the excitement of the hunt [that drives them].
One of the foremost collectors of rare Jewish books is Jack Lunzer, a retired industrial diamond merchant in London, who has one of the most valuable collections in the world – some 13,000 Hebrew works. In 2009, Sotheby’s exhibited a portion of his massive library, which included the most prized work of his collection, the first complete printed Shas, known at the Bomberg Shas. It previously belonged to King Henry VIII. As is well known, the king didn’t have any male heirs and wanted to annul his marriage so that he could remarry and attempt to have a son. [In order to legitimize his divorce,] an adviser informed him that he may find a solution in the Talmud. He ordered a copy of the first Shas, printed in the early 1500s. He received a deluxe edition, bound especially for the king. Eventually, he gave it to the Church of England. Mr. Lunzer wanted to own this Shas and was initially unsuccessful in convincing the church to sell it. He bought the original charter of Westminster Abbey and persuaded the church to sell him the Talmud in exchange for the charter.
