Rare book finds at rummage sale

In 1895 Minnie Volker left a message to her future husband inside of her gift: "From Minnie Volker to Otto M.E. Buerger before we were married." One hundred and fourteen years later, the teacher's edition Bible, along with various other books from the estate of Otto M.E. Buerger, were found at the 16th annual Women's Commissioners sale.

"We don't know who donated these books," Lyla Rodgers, who is on the board of the Women's Commissioners said. "Sometimes you just wish you could put a little tracker on these books so you could know its story."

The Bible was found with several other rare books, including German Bibles to children's books. A German handbook on Freemasonry turned out to have a retail price of $300. The most expensive, "The Brownies at Home" dated in 1839 has a retail price of $325. None of this would be known without the efforts of juniors Daniel Racke, Christie Powers and senior Jennifer Maggi, who volunteered to research the age and price of the books under the guidance of used bookstore owner, Jill Noonan.

Noonan, who owns Mulligan Books in downtown Jonesville was also working at the Women's Commissioners sale in the book department when she opened up four boxes filled with the old books, and walked them down to the antique section.

Powers, who started in the clothing section of the Commissioners sale, said they ultimately wound up with four large boxes of old books in Wiegand computer lab, looking up the titles of old books on biblio.com. Powers said most of the books looked up were published between the late 1800s and early 1900s. One notable exception, both in date and price, was a German Bible published in 1733.

"After researching antique Bibles, we learned that 1733 is simply too recent for that particular Bible to be worth more than a hundred dollars, since the printing press in Europe had been churning out Bibles in various European languages for a few hundred years by then," Powers said. "If you had a Bible that was printed in that era, in English, printed in America that would be worth a lot."

Racke, a German major, helped to translate the titles of most of the German books, including the book entitled "Freemasonry: or, the Revelation of all Mysteries, Ceremonies, Formal Oaths Handshakes, and Symbols of the first three levels," and was published in 1829.

"It was the main problem was deciphering the type," Racke said. "It used typeface that wasn't really used anymore once we figured that out it was really easy."

Powers said the oddest book they came across by far was the book entitled, "Eugenics Sex Harmony: The Sexes, Their Relations and Problems, Including recent Fascinating Discoveries." It retails for $3.99.

"There was a very amusing picture of that book with a very gaunt old man walking next to a picket fence with a little boy holding his hand," Powers said. "Underneath it was a caption that read: 'the sins of the father are visited upon the children. A syphilitic sick man and his blind son.'"

The books are now being sold online through Noonan, who said all proceeds will go towards the Women's Commissioners scholarship.