Christie's auction

[Tom Jennings]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote:

> These are journals that any University library has multiple copies
> of (probably one in the math department, one in the main library).  If
> each of these issues was worth the $1000-$2000 that Christie's says it is,
> we could solve all of the public university's funding problems for a century
> without a problem.

You're making a logical argument where one is not applicable.

In this example, Turing wrote a world-changing paper in 1938, on
an obscure problem in mathematics that -- unbeknownst quite at the
time -- turned the world on it's head. The publication was
obscure.  This is a rare event. It's not any issue of any pub,
it's the one Turing's paper was in.

Pricing is also not rational. It is all just mouldering wood
cellulose. The particular pattern of marks on this one is what
makes it interesting.