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Correspondence from Philip Kaplan to Robert Lund
April 4th, 1958
Dear Mr. Lund:
Thank you for extending the final decision time to next Wednesday, I appreciate this very much.
To be quite honest with you I was not a bit surprised when you book dealer offered you $1250 for the Crowley books. I can only say that had he been fair with you in the first place he would have made you a better offer than $750.
At the moment I am quite concerned as to whether your dealer will return the books to you without causing you trouble. The above statement means that since the dealer has the books on his premises he is not very likely to give them up easily even with a higher bid. I do not know what understanding you had with him but he may feel that a commission is due him, or he may decide to charge storage as well as handling fees. So unless you give him the right to the last bid you may run into trouble.
This puts me in a most vulnerable spot. I feel that any offer that I make would mean nothing, because I may never end up with the books. For the dealer may try to get more from his client or decide to take less commission, anything to beat out another buyer.
As a collector I can compete with a dealer to your advantage for I can afford to pay the full price. So here is my suggestion which I feel is the only fair method that I would care to enter in the final bid. First is that you advise me if you can get the books back in your own home. From there on I offer you $1500 as a beginning. If agreeable to you I will mail you a certified check for $500 to bind the deal. I will then come out to Detroit and look the books over and at that time I will pay you an additional amount of money to close the deal. The amount will be substantial enough to make it worth your while, and I will then pack up the books and take them back with me to New York. If you prefer the whole transaction can be carried out in cash.
So as you see the rest is up to you. You have been very fair to me and I feel that I want to be the same to you. You can of course overlook this letter and decide to sell to your dealer and that will close everything. In any case, I remain
Sincerely,
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