{"id":11036,"date":"2013-04-05T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=11036"},"modified":"2014-06-11T08:32:31","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T12:32:31","slug":"blowin-wind-with-pawn-stars-book-expert-rebecca-romney-its-a-little-disturbing-to-me-that-my-fans-cant-create-a-fan-page-thats-not-grammatically-correct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=11036","title":{"rendered":"Blowin\u2019 Wind with Pawn Stars Book Expert Rebecca Romney: \u201cIt\u2019s a little disturbing to me that my fans can\u2019t create a fan page that\u2019s grammatically correct.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo taken by Sean Samuels:<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ok Fartheads. I know (as well as you all know) that metalheads are a really intelligent bunch. Pantera and Five Finger Death Punch fans aside, metal fans are some of the most open minded and intelligent people that I know. Most of us have sincere appreciations for many other styles of music, good food, and yes, we are even known to be able to read above an elementary school level.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, I always enjoy a great book and I also enjoy collecting crap. For this reason, the History Channel show Pawn Stars has been one of my favorite shows since its premier in 2009. With their cast of experts that usually come in to aid in offering up information, history and appraisals on everything from old cars to old beat up books, Pawn Stars has totally appealed to me and fascinated this long time fan of stuff. Among the cast of experts is Bauman Rare Books store manager Rebecca Romney. Rebecca is called in to appraise and offer up her knowledge on old books when the guys at the Pawn Shop aren\u2019t sure what it is that they\u2019re looking at.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to meet Rebecca during my Christmas trip to Las Vegas and she was gracious enough to take me on a tour of Bauman Rare Books<\/a> and answer some questions I had about book collecting. I was absolutely fascinated by our conversation and I thought it would be cool to do an interview with her for the site. So sit back, put on your reading classes, and sip some tea as we get to know Rebecca Romney.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Hi Rebecca, thanks so much for taking the time out to talk with me today. I\u2019d like to think that this is your FIRST interview with a heavy metal website.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s my pleasure and that is correct. This is a first [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Heavy Metal fans get a bad rap sometimes as far as being meatheads or burnouts but we\u2019re a pretty diverse, well-read bunch of people for the most part.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] I\u2019m aware of that actually. Many of my friends are very much into heavy metal. One of my dearest friends from high school was very much into metal.<\/p>\n

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Well a lot of my readers were very excited over the idea of me interviewing you and can\u2019t wait to see what I would ask you. Don\u2019t worry; it won\u2019t be anything shocking I promise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Ok.<\/p>\n

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So as a long time fan of Pawn Stars<\/a>, I\u2019ve been curious to ask you. Have you always been Rick Harrison’s \u201cbook expert,\u201d or was this a relationship sparked up for the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sort of both. We had interactions with Rick totally separate from the show. He knew of us and we knew of him and we\u2019d have interactions here and there. We would run into each other at similar events. It\u2019s kind of a small world in Las Vegas, so hard not to have that happen. That being said, we didn\u2019t really get involved with the show until somewhat late in the game. That did come about because of our off and on interactions with Rick, but it came a lot later.<\/p>\n

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How did you become a book expert and working for Bauman Rare Books? Is there a book expert degree you can earn in college? What\u2019s your story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Yeah, I wish there were a book expert degree [laughs]. There are a lot of ways up this mountain. For instance, just to give you an idea, at Bauman Rare Books, my background is in Classical Studies, so essentially, Ancient Greece and Rome, and Linguistics and languages. We do have some English majors here. We have people with Library Science degrees, but we also have people with Political Science degrees. We have people with Philosophy degrees; History, of course, and we have aReverend on staff. We have a lawyer on staff. There are many ways to get where we are. We all just kind of ended up here. In the end what brought us all together was a love of literature and history.<\/p>\n

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So why books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I definitely grew up a reader. My entire family was a family of readers. My father loves science fiction and he had a huge collection of science fiction paperbacks. I used to borrow my older brother\u2019s books. He was so particular because I was five years younger than him and I was not necessarily the best person to lend your books to [laughs]. Before he would let me borrow any of them, he was very specific and would give me really strict rules. I learned at a pretty young age about how to take care of them because I knew that I couldn\u2019t read them unless I took care of them. I wouldn\u2019t have access to them because he would take that away.<\/p>\n

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Being that you work with some of the most rare and valuable books out there, are you yourself a collector of rare books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I definitely have that impulse and there are particular areas that I like. There is someone that I do actively collect but I try to keep it under control. He\u2019s a publisher named Thomas Mosher. In some ways it\u2019s a very dangerous habit to get into [laughs]. If you\u2019re around books like this you have to really control your lust for them. The nice thing about a job like this is that you feel like a collector while you are consulting with other collectors. That\u2019s our ideal:we actually act as consultants for people building up their rare book library, so when I find a book and place a book in a great library, I kind of feel like I own it or collect it by proxy. I know it\u2019s going to a good place, I\u2019ve gotten to handle it, I got to essentially convince someone that this is a book that is appropriate for their collection. That actually is an effective diversion of the collecting impulse\u2014which I definitely have.<\/p>\n

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\"rebeccaromney02\"<\/a>I can imagine that you could go broke in your position if you\u2019re not careful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Yes. That\u2019s why I can\u2019t do it. This is a hotel casino that we work in. It would be like me coming to work and then going down on my breaks and gambling. If you\u2019re in this environment, you\u2019ve got to have certain rules for yourself.<\/p>\n

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Have you been approached at all about maybe having your own spin off show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] A lot of people want to know the answer to that and essentially, the answer is that I\u2019ve signed a non-disclosure agreement for anything relating to behind the scenes of Pawn Stars stuff. The question I can answer that doesn\u2019t fit into that non-disclosure is if that is something I would be interested in doing.<\/p>\n

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Actually, that is a much better question. Is it something you would be interested in?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Well, I\u2019ve given it some thought and I think that it\u2019s a very complex question. Some people are like, \u201cOf course you should have your own show. Done and done. Why not?\u201d On my end, #1, I am a book seller. That is my career. That\u2019s who I am. I\u2019m not necessarily excited about leaving that in any way. That\u2019s a complexity to keep in mind. Another complexity to keep in mind is how a show about books would work. Also, if I were involved in something I\u2019d very much want to be proud of the finished product. I think there are reality shows that are fun and that are worth doing, like Pawn Stars, but not all reality shows are like that and I don\u2019t necessarily want to be a part of something that I\u2019m not 100% really excited about.<\/p>\n

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What is it that truly makes for a \u201cvaluable\u201d rare book, and when trying to identify a book\u2019s rareness, what are some details to look for?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, a rare book is a book that essentially is collected. What collectors want by and large is the first edition: the first time the book appeared in print. In the vast majority of cases, if the book you have isn\u2019t a first edition, then it won\u2019t be valuable or rare. There are exceptions to that, of course. I mean, collecting is always a little bit crazier than it needs to be. As far as things to look for, that\u2019s a really tough question because every book is different. Every book has different circumstances of printing. Every process that creates that physical object is unique. In some cases, half way through the printing, this happened with the Huckleberry Finn<\/strong><\/em> first edition, the \u201cL\u201d in colonel broke on the page. That\u2019s something you\u2019re never going to reproduce. An accident like that is unique to the process that happened, so for every book you\u2019re looking at a unique set of circumstances that creates a physical object\u2014and those unique circumstances are what help you identify the book. Every book is different. There are some general principles you need to look for. For instance, if it\u2019s a 20th century or 21st century book, it should have its dust jacket.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve seen you point that out on the show a few times.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the first few decades after they became more common in the 20th century, collectors ignored them too, and gradually the consensus became, \u201cWe want this book to be as close to the original way it was first put on the bookshelf as possible.\u201d And that means without the dust jacket it\u2019s not complete as a collectible. There are plenty of people who were collecting in the 1950\u2019s who were like, \u201cI don\u2019t care about a Gatsby in jacket\u201d and now they\u2019re kicking themselves [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Is there any advice you have for any rare book hunters out there? Where are some of the best places to search for those rare treasures?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s really tough because one of the main ways we get our books is through connections to private collectors. We really don\u2019t get our books from estate sales because that is a place where the books have been neglected. Someone passed on and the books haven\u2019t been given attention. Not only is that going to affect the condition, but it also makes it a lot less likely that there is anything worthwhile. We usually go to people where we know what they have, that they\u2019ve taken very good care of it, and have painstakingly built up a collection over decades. As with anything, you\u2019re not going to have the opportunity to find a rare book if you\u2019re not putting yourself in the position or giving yourself that opportunity.So the more you\u2019re out in book shops searching, the more you go through estate sales, the more you do those things, the more likely that lady luck will smile upon you and you\u2019ll find something.<\/p>\n

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Bauman Rare Books sees a lot of books coming through its doors. What is the rarest and most valuable book you have seen in your time there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, one that I have personally seen and personally sold was a copy of Newton\u2019s Principia Mathmatica<\/strong><\/em> that was the book where he essentially laid out his laws of motion and gravity. It was published in a Latin edition in just a couple of hundred copies and privately printed by his friend Edmund Haley, whom you probably know from Haley\u2019s Comet. That book is so cool and so rare. It goes for as much as $500,000.<\/p>\n

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Wow. That can buy a lot of records. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a record that expensive!<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] The thing is though, records may not get up there the same as books, but books don\u2019t get up there the way that art does. When we are at an antiques show, we are often one of the least expensive things there compared to furniture and art.<\/p>\n

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Are all rare books going to be hardcover, or are there some paperbacks that are considered rare and valuable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, there are, but again it comes down to the first edition thing. If a book first came out in a paperback, a soft cover format, and that\u2019s the first time that book appeared, then that\u2019s the one that people are going to want. Anexample of that isLolita<\/strong><\/em>by Vladimir Nabokov. That was actually published by a press in Paris. No one else would touch it. Everyone in America and the UK was freaked out about publishing this book and the person who actually picked it up was a guy who was known for \u201cdirty books.\u201d He printed a lot of kind of smutty things but also printed William S. Burroughs, and some Beckett, so he also printed people who could not necessarily get printed because of publishers worrying about obscenity laws. This press did soft cover books, usually in a green wrapper.So the first time that Lolita ever came out, it was a two-volume soft cover, green wrapper sort of book. That\u2019s the most desirable edition.<\/p>\n

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Ok, so Rebecca, you can\u2019t interview with a metal blog without talking about a little bit of \"rebeccaromney03\"<\/a>heavy metal here. Are you a fan at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some [laughs]. Well, let\u2019s see. I mean, I guess it depends on what era you\u2019re talking about. I\u2019m a child of the 90\u2019s and while it might not really be heavy metal, I\u2019m a true fan of Tool. My boyfriend in high school\u2019s two favorite bands were Tool and Dave Matthews Band. I kept one and jettisoned the other [laughs].<\/p>\n

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{laughs] That\u2019s awesome! I did give you an Iron Maiden mix CD. What were your thoughts on it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, first of all, I was surprised because I guess it was more tame than I expected it to be. What I mean by that is that these guys were pioneers in a lot of ways, and they have a real lyric basis, whereas a lot of later stuff is harder. Growing up and being more exposed to that kind of stuff, and then having to retroactively look at heavy metal from the \u201880s was a very interesting experience because I was judging it based on what grew out of it, not the source itself. I was very surprised at the lyric quality of it. I knew there was a lot of emphasis on really beautiful guitar craft work. I can appreciate that because I play guitar and it was really nice to listen to that. I really like guitar solos. I also found that there was a lot more refinement there than you would be lead to believe if you just hear about it, rather than actually hear it.<\/p>\n

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I remember doing a British literature presentation on Iron Maiden and my teacher was like, \u201cAbsolutely not! You cannot talk about them.\u201d Then I did a presentation on their song \u201cRime of the Ancient Mariner<\/em>\u201d and she goes, \u201cCan you bring me some of their stuff to listen to?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] I wasn\u2019t inclined to be prejudiced towards It before I heard it because I also like Led Zeppelin and stuff like that, but again, because I\u2019m a child of the 90\u2019s, one of my favorite bands ever is Smashing Pumpkins.So it\u2019s not like I have a problem with music that\u2019s edgy or whatever you want to call it.So I wasn\u2019t inclined to be prejudiced, it was more that I didn\u2019t have a lot of exposure to it.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m glad you enjoyed the mix Rebecca. Maybe I\u2019ll make you a Part II sometime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] That would be great!<\/p>\n

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As a collector of memorabilia, one of my Holy Grails is a collection of Kiss dolls still in the box. What is your Holy Grail, something you have always wanted?<\/strong><\/p>\n

{laughs] One of the things that would be the Holy Grail for me would probably be the Kelmscott Chaucer. In the late-19th century, William Morris created a version of Chaucer at his Kelmscott Press and it\u2019s often called a pocket cathedral. It is sort of the beginning of the private press movement,a reaction to the mass production of the Industrial Age. It is a jewel of a book. It\u2019s gorgeous and amazing and not only one of the landmarks of printing, but also the private press movement. Another one is the Newton Principia Mathmatica.<\/strong><\/em>I\u2019d love to have that one and I\u2019d buy that in a second if I had the money [laughs].<\/p>\n

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So if you could have dinner with any author alive or dead, who would it be and what would you discuss?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is so hard. Alive or dead? [laughs]<\/p>\n

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Yes. And you can only pick one because there\u2019s not enough food to go around.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] One of the obvious answers to that would be Shakespeare, but one of the reasons I would choose him is because there are so many mysteries about Shakespeare\u2019s life. There\u2019s so much that\u2019s undocumented and so much that we don\u2019t know what happened with him. You can count on one hand and a finger [six total] the number Shakespeare signatures that we have, for example. As far as a personal connection though, someone I would like to just hang out with, my easy answerwould be Herman Melville. Love, Love, Love Melville. He can be very funny and at the same time philosophical. He can write adventure stories and then he kind of mixes in serious metaphor and morality. He\u2019s very versatile and I think he\u2019s got a mind with many depths to plumb.<\/p>\n

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Wow. Sounds like you have a crush.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] The problem with Melville too is that he was one of the early literary heartthrobs, and women just kind of swooned about the idea of him [laughs]. If you\u2019ve seen pictures of him, he\u2019s actually a pretty good looking guy [laughs]. He\u2019s got the whole 19th-century facial hair thing going on, but otherwise\u2026 [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Who do you feel is the unsung hero of the literary world and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can think of one right off the top of my head, and that\u2019s Willa Cather. I recently went to an event around Willa Cather so I\u2019ve been revisiting her books again.I\u2019ve always liked Cather. She has this odd place where people kind of recognize that she\u2019s important, but she pales in comparison in most people\u2019s minds to her contemporary male writers like Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck, and I think that\u2019s a shame. I think her writing and specific portions of her writing are as good as any portions that you\u2019re going to find in, say, Grapes of Wrath. I think part of that has to do with the gender bias and another part of that has to do with the fact that she was not on the cusp of the new morality and the new technology. She was more straddling the line with James between modernity and the 19th Century, whereas some of her contemporaries like Hemingway and such really sprang forward into modernity. Her work is so beautiful and so American. The best example of that is, and if anyone has any question about Cather\u2019s skill, is to read the \u201cOutland\u201d portion of The Professor\u2019s House<\/strong><\/em>. After you read that there\u2019s no way that you can sanely argueher prose cannot compare to the other greats of her time.<\/p>\n

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This is so cool to hear. I know nothing about Cather and now I want to read this to see what it\u2019s about. I\u2019m always pulling for the underdog.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Yeah, Cather doesn\u2019t get as much attention as she deserves.<\/p>\n

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You are pretty much a celebrity now because of the show but I\u2019m sure fans forget that you actually have a \u201cjob\u201d doing what you do. I\u2019m sure people come in and bug you while you\u2019re working so if you could say to your fans, please don\u2019t do [this], what would you say to them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Well, the one thing I would ask you not to do is to bring your books with you to be appraised [laughs]. This happens all the time where they walk in with their books and they\u2019ve traveled across the country and they want to show me their books. One thing to keep in mind is that we don\u2019t do official appraisals. What we do for Rick is a favor and one of the reasons we can do that is that we have no commercial interest in that book. Also, furtive staring and whispering is awkward for everyone. Just come up and say hi, introduce yourself. I’m a normal person and you can talk to me like one!<\/p>\n

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I saw that you even have a fan page on Facebook dedicated to you (it\u2019s called Rebecca Romney is So Friggin Hot<\/a>). How do you feel about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Oh yes. I know about that. I find it amusing and exasperating [laughs]. The main reason I find it exasperating quite frankly is because it\u2019s grammatically incorrect [laughs]. There should be an apostrophe after \u201cfriggin.\u201d It\u2019s a little disturbing to me that my fans can\u2019t create a fan page that\u2019s grammatically correct. One thing I can tell you about it that I think you\u2019ll probably get a kick out of is that the people at the Pawn Shop are aware of this page. They think it\u2019s hilarious and they needle me about it [laughs]. It is funny and it\u2019s nothing to get riled up about really. It just is what it is [laughs]. Some people have been like, \u201cYou should get that page taken down. It\u2019s a bad representation of you.\u201d It\u2019s not representing me. I\u2019m representing me and that\u2019s a fan page and they\u2019re very clear about that. What\u2019s the problem? [laughs]<\/p>\n

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You’ve been keeping a blog lately (Aldine by Rebecca Romney<\/a>). It’s really interesting and I\u2019ve really enjoyed reading your little tidbits of knowledge and information about rare books. Is it very time consuming to keep up with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not at all. Because my life revolves so much around books, I don\u2019t really have to take a lot of time to come up with material. I don\u2019t take very long to write those posts for my Facebook page and my blog. They\u2019re just meant to be fun things, little tidbits that I run across here and there hopefully giving people a chance to take a second look at books.<\/p>\n

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Thank you so much for doing this Rebecca! This was a really interesting interview and I can\u2019t wait to share it with my readers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will warn you. If it\u2019s too embarrassing I will not post it on my Facebook page. If it\u2019s not too embarrassing, I will [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Well, I will transcribe this verbatim and edit it so being that it\u2019s your interview, I\u2019m going to try really hard to make sure my grammar and punctuation is as good as it can be. I\u2019m not making any promises though.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Thanks and it was fun talking to you again Don.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Brainfart & Rebecca Romney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok Fartheads. I know (as well as you all know) that metalheads are a really intelligent bunch. Pantera and Five Finger Death Punch fans aside, metal fans are some of the most open minded and intelligent people that I know. Most of us have sincere appreciations for many other styles of music, good food, and yes, we are even known to be able to read above an elementary school level. If you\u2019re like me, I always enjoy a great book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[923,922,921],"class_list":["post-11036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-bauman-rare-books","tag-pawn-stars","tag-rebecca-romney"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}