Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Jim McDougall · 5th May 2025, 05:36 PM

Excellent story Ed!!!
Thats what its all about when it comes to books, and what they give us in addition to the information they hold. I learned early in in the collecting game that the books and info were more valuable than the weapons in some perspectives.

While information is of course accessible online, there is something about holding the original old references, the musty smell, the feel of the pages, and above all the original context of cited material.

A quotation I have long held in my library:

"...if you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or, as it were, fondle them- per into them, let them fall open where they will.
Read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on their shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you will at least know where they are.

Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances.

-Winston Churchill

As the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was in his last days after suffering a mortal wound in a duel in 1837, he went into his library, and bid farewell to his beloved books, his friends as he called them.

After nearly six decades of assembling my own library, I can entirely relate, and my happiest moments have always been awaiting a new arrival of some obscure title.

A 'Bizarro' cartoon I saved from back in the 90s:

5th May 2025, 05:36 PM	#1
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,277	Excellent story Ed!!! Thats what its all about when it comes to books, and what they give us in addition to the information they hold. I learned early in in the collecting game that the books and info were more valuable than the weapons in some perspectives. While information is of course accessible online, there is something about holding the original old references, the musty smell, the feel of the pages, and above all the original context of cited material. A quotation I have long held in my library: "...if you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or, as it were, fondle them- per into them, let them fall open where they will. Read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on their shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you will at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. -Winston Churchill As the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was in his last days after suffering a mortal wound in a duel in 1837, he went into his library, and bid farewell to his beloved books, his friends as he called them. After nearly six decades of assembling my own library, I can entirely relate, and my happiest moments have always been awaiting a new arrival of some obscure title. A 'Bizarro' cartoon I saved from back in the 90s: Attached Images Last edited by Jim McDougall; 5th May 2025 at 06:02 PM.