Letter: Turner bookkeeping

Little more than two years ago, The THES published my letter on sales of books identical to those in the Turner Collection, which the University of Keele secretly sold in the summer of 1998 for £1 million.

I noted that 44 books were offered for sale for £444,515, averaging £10,103 per volume Some of these items were offered in several places and I took the average price.

I have continued to monitor sales and how the prices have changed. I have now noted 181 (or 183) volumes at sale price of £1,280,942 (or £1,311,042), averaging £7,077 (or £7,164 ) per volume.

The alternative values arise because the Turner Collection had two copies of two of the books and the alternative price assumes both copies could be sold at the same value. No examples equivalent to many of the most interesting books in the collection have appeared on the market.

David Singmaster
Computing, information systems and mathematics
South Bank University