Last weekend I was at my favorite local antique mall, and I came across a small, slim book with a plain paper dust jacket, printed with the words "Merry Christmas". When I peeked inside, I discovered it was the children's book "The Littlest Angel" by Charles Tazewell. It was only $4, so I added it to a couple of other things I found. When I got home, I decided to find out what I had. In researching the book, I discovered that I had a fairly special copy of "The Littlest Angel". It appeared to be a first edition, printed in 1946. It seemed that it was possible that the book had never been opened, or read, as it was in pristine condition. No writing inside, no smudges, bent pages or marks of any kind. There was a bit of damage to the outside upper spine where the dust jacket was torn. When I opened the book, it split cleanly along the spine binding, as the paper was so fragile. I'm not an expert, but it seems that would be easy to fix, and almost undetectable. I immediately loved the sweet story, and lovely stylized illustrations by Katherine Evans.
I went to several online rare book sites, and discovered that similar editions of this book were listed at fairly high prices- anywhere from $100 to nearly $500, depending on the condition. Some of the higher priced books even had names or inscriptions written inside, mine did not. But the big problem was that all of the higher price books had their dust jacket. Mine had this odd Merry Christmas dust jacket. So what was up with that cover? When I first saw it, I thought it might be a Christmas gift given by a corporation, church, or organization. Disappointed that my funny dust jacket might preclude it from realizing its highest value, I decided to investigate further. There was also a name printed on the cover, C. C. Moseley. Who was this guy? Was he a pastor, business owner, teacher? I wasn't sure I'd even be able to find anything out about him, because his name was just listed as C. C. But I discovered that Mr. C. C. Moseley wasn't just any guy. He was an important guy! C.C. Moseley was actually Corliss C. Moseley, a decorated WWI air pilot, who began training others for combat, and taught flying for decades. He was a co-founder of the Western Air Express in 1924 (which eventually became Western Airlines), and he managed the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California for decades. In his later years, he was a member of then-Governor Ronald Reagan's famous "Kitchen Cabinet", which was made up of self-made entrepreneurs and patriots.
Major C. C. Moseley during WWI |
Maj. Moseley on the left |
C C Moseley in 1932 |
So, just a fun little story about the interesting things I've learned as a collector, and the most important lesson of not judging a book by its cover!
2 comments:
What an incredible story, Stef!!! I remember that book from my childhood. It is a very sweet story!
great story!
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