There are folks who will certify signatures out there, but most of them are expensive. C. A. Arthur is _not_ one of the more expensive signatures, and there's very little reason someone would forge his signature -- particularly if it looks like it was done while he was alive (faking the aging of a signature is one of the more difficult parts to do right). Quick check on ABE shows a few Chester Arthur signatures, available for between $125 and $850 (the latter also signed by Robert Lincoln). (search method: author "chester arthur" and box for "signed" checked in advance search -- not guaranteed to catch everything. Searching similarly for "chester alan arthur" yielded no results.)

And _if_ it had been a faked signature, it would have been much more likely to have been sold to someone who would have paid much money for it and therefore much less likely to have shown up at a stoop sale. Especially by someone who didn't know who Arthur was, which seems likely from your description.

There are lots of bargains out there. Sounds like you got one! Love to see it sometime.

Cheers,
Tom Whitmore
(currently highly recommending OUT OF THE FLAMES by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, a book on church history, the rise of literacy, a really rare book and the fight between Michael Servetus and John Calvin for the soul of Protestant religion)

He is also the only President to have been a member of Psi Upsilon, the college fraternity whose University of Washington members, in 2003, waged a war of late-night noise and deliberate annoyance against the students and instructors of Clarion West from their fraternity house across the street. One suspects the elegant and well-mannered Chester Alan Arthur would have disapproved.

Tom, want to tell your story?

I read that right after I got home (I think I bought it in hospital in Germany, and I'm still kicking myself for not getting the book of T. Geisel's wartime cartoons).

It was a great read, and if nothing else will give one a great trivia question to ask people.

Terry K.

Sadness is the book with a loving inscription, but that was never read because the giver misguessed the recipient's tastes, or never had the chance to give it. Books that gather dust are sad. Books should be read.

On the other side of the inscription tale, there's Edward Gorey from THE UNSTRUNG HARP, where Mr. Earbrass finds a book that he'd inscribed "To Angus -- will we ever forget the bloaters." His thought -- "Angus? Bloaters?"

And I don't remember which prominent Sherlockian it was who, whenever he found one of his keepsake Christmas-card booklets offered for sale, would buy it and send it back to the person he'd originally sent it to (he kept lists of the numbers) with a note saying it was the last one they'd receive....

I was just helping some non-bibliophile friends look up information on an old history of Scotland they'd picked up -- binding falling off, but the bookplate was from a woman who was probably "Monk" Lewis's sister, who helped him edit later books so they wouldn't be so offensive, and the first volume had the signature of a very important (female) Scottish historian of the 19th century -- a book with really wonderful historicity.

And I have a friend who picked up a collection of Italian ghost stories while at a barn sale with a bunch of other Serious Weird Fiction collectors -- nobody else had looked at it closely enough to see that it was from H. P. Lovecraft's library, and presented by him to (IIRC) W. Paul Cook. Now that's a great find for $2.00....

I'll be offline for a few days. Don't get in too much trouble without me.

Cheers,
Tom

...but I have a book my wife gave me when we were starting toward life-long partnership, with a lipstick kiss and a loving inscription. How sad it is to find such a book for seventy-five cents!

Kate Y.