The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Heribert Tenschert - World's Leading Dealer of Rare and Antiquarian Books (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_981)

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00:01:02.300 edu slash independence slash. Hi everybody, this is Gatsad for The Sad Truth. Today I've got the

00:01:09.220 second antiquarian book dealer, but he holds the title of the most leading global rare book

00:01:19.160 antiquarian dealer. I have Harrybert Tenshirt. How are you doing, sir? I'm fine. Thank you very

00:01:26.040 much, Mr. Saad. It's so good to see you. Please feel free to call me, Gad, if you'd like. I just

00:01:31.400 want to mention a few of your many honors. You were awarded in 2002 the prestigious Chevalier

00:01:40.360 de l'Or des Arts et des Lettres medal from the French government. And in 2010, you received an

00:01:47.460 honorary doctorate honoris causa from your alma mater the university of freiburg recognizing your

00:01:53.500 many decades of preserving and promoting the world's literary and cultural heritage i first

00:02:00.300 heard of you through one of your representatives and as soon as i saw that email i said

00:02:06.820 you don't need to sell me on wanting to speak to this guy i was very excited to speak to you so

00:02:11.800 maybe we could start off with way back 40, 45 years ago, how did you get into this beautiful

00:02:18.560 business? Yes, thank you for that introduction. I always was an avid reader, you know, with 10 or

00:02:29.720 11 or 12 years, I always was reading. It was some years after the Second World War, and I read what

00:02:38.380 i got into my hands and this was from pulp fiction to homer and and backwards and i then

00:02:51.480 had some favorites one of them you will know walter benjamin whom i loved very much perhaps

00:03:02.420 I did not understand everything he wrote, but I loved his prose style.

00:03:09.740 And so I read everything I got into my hands.

00:03:16.100 And then I tried to get earlier books because they weren't at hand in the 50s or in the early 60s.

00:03:28.080 And so it came that I was interested in older books, in first editions, in beautiful books.

00:03:42.060 But you had no vision at this point that I wish to become a rare book collector and dealer.

00:03:50.380 your love of books sort of made you almost accidentally fall into that business or did

00:03:56.520 you have that vision a priori not at all I was always reading as I said but it was it was

00:04:10.020 a kind of

00:04:12.820 it's difficult

00:04:17.820 you know my English is about

00:04:19.740 10% of my German

00:04:21.200 well your 10%

00:04:24.240 in English is better than

00:04:25.960 my 0% in German

00:04:27.860 so you're winning

00:04:28.580 okay

00:04:29.980 it wasn't only

00:04:33.480 Walter Benjamin there were others

00:04:35.580 that I really liked

00:04:37.020 of whom I got

00:04:39.680 early or first editions

00:04:42.760 and then I

00:04:45.300 got the feeling

00:04:49.080 for the beauty of old books

00:04:51.620 the beauty

00:04:52.740 this by the way is

00:04:55.200 the most important

00:04:58.720 begriff as we say in German

00:05:02.300 the most important

00:05:03.320 word

00:05:05.820 in the love of books for me.

00:05:11.960 And bibliophilia is different from love of books

00:05:15.640 as, say, philosophy is different

00:05:19.840 from the love of wisdom or whatever.

00:05:25.400 And so in the early 60s, I bought these books

00:05:30.620 And then I realized that they have their own value, not financial value, not mercantile value, but their own value, which in my way was about the beauty of the elder of the older books.

00:05:58.500 But then I went to university and I was collecting fine books for small money, of course.

00:06:11.500 And only at the end of my university career, which was when I was assistant for romance languages in the Middle Ages,

00:06:24.740 I thought of becoming a rare book dealer because I saw that science was not the real aim for me.

00:06:43.640 And so I started in 1977 with a small antiquariat, as we say, antiquarian business.

00:06:53.700 And I, of course, offered the small library that I had assembled in the last 12 or 15 years.

00:07:03.300 Now, 12 years later, I think if I remember, if I did my homework correctly, you then had caused quite a splash in the book collecting world when you had purchased a handwritten copy of Franz Kafka's The Trial. Is that correct? Am I getting that right?

00:07:26.560 That's perfectly correct.

00:07:29.580 Tell us about that. Yes.

00:07:30.780 It was in 1988 when I bought the manuscript of the trial process of Kafka, and I was then about 11 years in the business.

00:07:46.880 But one has to say that in 1988, I had already about 200 or 250 medieval manuscripts for sale.

00:08:02.780 And so it was broader than just owning the manuscript of the trial.

00:08:10.820 I want to get in a few minutes how do you choose which books to add to your collection

00:08:15.820 and all this kind of stuff.

00:08:17.780 But I want to see, I mean, I'm just looking at the beauty of all your books behind you

00:08:22.000 and it's already making me feel very envious because I don't clearly have books that are

00:08:27.000 as beautiful.

00:08:27.800 But I think I might impress you with this first edition, maybe.

00:08:31.760 You mentioned Austrian offline when I was trying to learn how to properly spell your

00:08:37.620 name.

00:08:37.880 Well, I have here in front of me a first edition, 1927, of Arthur Schnitzler, a Austrian psychiatrist.

00:08:49.240 Herbert, are you familiar with this guy?

00:08:51.900 Yes, of course.

00:08:53.060 Oh, my.

00:08:54.580 My wife was only able to find three first edition English copies.

00:09:00.660 Let me tell you the story behind why I got into this guy.

00:09:04.100 so in uh the late 1990s you might remember that the uh filmmaker stanley kubrick came out with

00:09:12.960 the movie eyes wide shut i watched that movie and i was very struck by it so i right away went and

00:09:19.800 did some searches and i realized i found out that he had bought the rights to honor arthur schnitzler's

00:09:27.060 novella from the 1920s and so for many many years i said i one day have to get this first edition

00:09:33.540 mildly impressive

00:09:35.840 Harry Burt or not at all

00:09:37.420 no that's very

00:09:39.860 impressive and of course I

00:09:41.820 know that Kubrick

00:09:43.600 based his film

00:09:45.900 on Schnitzler's

00:09:48.700 Traum Novelle

00:09:49.580 as we say

00:09:50.520 and Schnitzler

00:09:53.860 is one of my

00:09:55.840 favorites but there are others

00:09:57.740 that I

00:10:00.060 prefer

00:10:00.860 perhaps you have heard of

00:10:03.200 Heimito von Dodera

00:10:06.020 who is

00:10:07.200 but you should know him

00:10:09.560 you'll send me an email with all those names

00:10:11.940 I send you the book

00:10:14.100 oh wow

00:10:16.040 and you will see

00:10:17.880 he is in my

00:10:19.520 opinion

00:10:20.380 the most important

00:10:23.240 novel

00:10:24.720 author of novels in the 20th century

00:10:28.000 in German

00:10:28.840 wow

00:10:29.920 yeah he's he's better than thomas mann or musil and i know them all i have them all you know i

00:10:36.920 mean wow what i'm talking about so okay so now let's get so you may or may not know this but

00:10:43.400 my you probably don't know this my my training in my doctoral dissertation was studying the the

00:10:50.300 cognitive processes in in decision making how do people make decisions when have they when have

00:10:56.520 they acquired enough information to stop acquiring additional information and make a choice so let's

00:11:03.400 turn that knowledge on to you there is an infinite world almost infinite world of possible books that

00:11:10.120 one can acquire what is your cognitive process and deciding these are the types of treasures

00:11:17.300 i'm going after next well gad you don't know me and i'm in business for now 49 years and

00:11:30.580 without exaggeration i have owned nearly all the most important books

00:11:38.860 in any language that i master with the exception of the gutenberg bible

00:11:46.540 wow

00:11:47.420 no I have had any

00:11:50.560 first edition

00:11:52.420 on the species by Darwin

00:11:54.920 no

00:11:56.660 no

00:11:57.260 not that of course that is very important

00:12:00.900 but Gerd

00:12:02.240 you should know and you will know

00:12:04.820 that it's only a

00:12:06.620 question of money

00:12:08.140 and

00:12:09.320 I am always

00:12:12.600 looking for beauty

00:12:13.720 you know

00:12:15.160 Of course, I will show you the first edition of the trial of the process of Kafka, and we'll show you the two alternatives.

00:12:30.960 One, a very good copy, like that.

00:12:40.080 Wow.

00:12:40.800 That's the first edition of Kafka.

00:12:43.680 In German.

00:12:45.160 it's in german of course i mean kafka wrote in german um it's inside it's perfect um and it's

00:12:53.000 it's good as you see and this is about 2500 or 3000 dollars not more but this

00:13:03.640 you know this is nothing else but the first edition of the trial the process but with the

00:13:10.440 the dust jacket and there was only one copy with the dust jacket in the last 20 years in the market

00:13:17.360 and this made more than a hundred thousand dollars in 2015 amazing so i mean you see what i'm what

00:13:27.200 i'm looking for amazing for the fine for the finest things you will see other things i i think

00:13:34.060 As we say, one picture tells a thousand words.

00:13:39.000 I will show you some manuscripts in some of the better books that I have here.

00:13:45.080 But as I said, I have acquired in the last 48 years of the books that I can read.

00:13:57.940 I read the Romance languages, English, Italian, of course, German, and so on, Latin, Greek.

00:14:06.920 I tried to get the finest copies on earth.

00:14:12.920 How would that, what's the mechanism?

00:14:15.140 Is it you go to estate sales?

00:14:17.740 Is it, you know, antiquarian events?

00:14:23.640 Is it auctions at Sotheby's?

00:14:25.760 What's the mechanism for someone at your level of book dealing?

00:14:31.660 Where do you go to actually look for these treasures?

00:14:35.620 In the beginning, it was auction sales, of course.

00:14:41.100 Sotheby's, Christie's, the many, many French auction sales, German, Italian, Spanish, and so on, in the beginning.

00:14:50.800 And then I built several collections of manuscripts, of very fine books, of Inconabula, and so on.

00:15:02.180 And this was this network that I built.

00:15:07.040 And so, meanwhile, in the last 20, 25 years, I get those books that you never see, you never get from this network, from my colleagues, from private collectors, and so on.

00:15:25.020 Do you ever get, it would have to be a wealthy person, a super wealthy person reaches out to you because of your status in the industry and says, I am commissioning you to go find me this book.

00:15:41.220 Does that often happen or is it more you just go about your business and then eventually the customers find their way to you?

00:15:47.800 or is it targeted someone you know whomever bill ackman reaches out to you he's a he's a wealthy

00:15:53.580 hedge fund guy from new york and says hey i want something dealing with da vinci

00:15:58.020 please find it for me heribert no that doesn't happen um people know that when they come to me

00:16:06.200 they will have um a choice that is uh unique we have about say 25 000 really good books

00:16:16.180 25 000 and we have another 250 000 that are not bad and until one year and a half i had 200

00:16:28.940 medieval manuscripts medieval manuscript but illuminated medieval manuscript so when people

00:16:35.600 come of course sometimes they may say i want this very book normally i have it normally

00:16:44.760 If I don't have it, I can say, okay, I get you that.

00:16:49.720 If it isn't just, say, first edition of the Don Quixote or the Gutenberg Bible, normally I can do this within one or two years.

00:17:03.700 Okay, wow.

00:17:05.000 What are some of the...

00:17:07.020 So let's say we take...

00:17:09.160 I hate to say this, but I have to be honest.

00:17:12.040 My reading consumption is much more reserved for nonfiction, so that even though, of course, this would be an example of a novella, 95% plus of all that I read and acquire is nonfiction, and I think it's something that I have to try to resolve because I'm missing out on infinite number of incredible literature.

00:17:39.500 but in your industry within your specific sort of very high rarefied antiquarian books

00:17:45.800 are most top books likely to be in the fiction world or non-fiction and if one is more than the

00:17:53.680 other what determines that there's not so much difference between the one and the other

00:18:01.300 But I have to add one very important fact.

00:18:07.680 This is illustration.

00:18:09.900 Right.

00:18:10.100 You know?

00:18:10.640 Yes.

00:18:10.920 I built over the last 25, 30 years, 12 collections of illustrated books from the 15th to the 20th century.

00:18:23.740 So you may say that I am a collector rather than a book dealer.

00:18:29.520 But when you are talking of nonfiction, the books behind me are one hundredth of my bibliographical books.

00:18:41.280 Okay.

00:18:41.960 Also here, you know, I try to get the finest copy on earth, printed on vellum, on parchment, or printed on Japanese paper, on China paper, bound in the finest bindings that you can imagine, and so on.

00:18:58.280 So, it's both, what you are asking, it's both here, and both is offered, and both is collected, of course.

00:19:12.040 So, what are some of the, okay, when you showed the trial, you showed it without the dust jacket.

00:19:19.020 Once you add the dust jacket, and if it's a very rare one, and if, of course, it's an immaculate condition, that's going to bring up the price.

00:19:25.500 if it's signed of course it's going to bring up the price if it is signed to someone that is

00:19:32.020 uniquely relevant to the author there's a narrative behind the thing that's going to increase the price

00:19:37.460 are there other things that you know most of our listeners and viewers would not know that contribute

00:19:44.680 to the price fluctuation yes um the main the main factor is condition state of preservation

00:19:56.920 the main factor really and you know i mean you are um alluding to books of the 20th century of

00:20:06.300 the 19th century. I have in view the books from 1450 to, say, 1960, 1970, 1980. And this,

00:20:22.620 of course, widens your perspective and also your understanding of bibliophily. And so,

00:20:32.460 So, of course, say, a first edition with a dedication by the author

00:20:41.680 is a more valuable thing than the thing itself.

00:20:48.440 But I'm sorry to say that there are so many other factors

00:20:55.860 that play a role in bibliophily.

00:21:00.280 as i said the beauty that for me this is the beauty my first catalog

00:21:07.020 48 years ago 49 years ago was called aesthetic des neuen books aesthetics of the modern book

00:21:16.940 right and and when people go by the way i'm going to we're going to add in the description

00:21:22.680 you know the link to your website and so i've gone to visit and i completely understand your

00:21:27.980 your infatuation with the aesthetic beauty because as you look at these images

00:21:32.680 they're really they're awe-inspiring so so people will see exactly what you're talking about

00:21:37.840 yeah so it's beauty and it's uh it's the perfect state of preservation that is really the most

00:21:48.160 important thing about a fine book. I mean, even say Darwin, Origin of Species,

00:22:01.200 there is a difference between a well-read or much-read book in the original

00:22:12.000 or in a new binding

00:22:16.940 compared to the original green binding

00:22:22.780 in a very fine state.

00:22:25.480 And this may say that the one is worth, say,

00:22:30.440 50,000 and the other 500,000.

00:22:33.820 I'm so glad you said that number

00:22:35.440 because I want to tell you a story.

00:22:36.700 You're going to enjoy it.

00:22:37.460 Are you familiar with the antiquarian dealer in Palm Beach called Raktus Books?

00:22:46.760 No.

00:22:47.520 So I accidentally stumbled on this antiquarian dealer.

00:22:53.720 He's on the main street.

00:22:55.140 I think it's called Worth Avenue.

00:22:57.380 I walk in.

00:22:58.600 I, you know, all the books look like the ones that you have behind you.

00:23:02.760 So I'm a kid in a candy store.

00:23:04.840 and then I asked them, do you have first edition on the origin of species? They had it exactly in

00:23:10.960 the green thing that you said, and you said 500,000. They had it, I don't know, maybe it's

00:23:16.200 gone up now. This was maybe two years ago. It was listed at $400,000 with its case. So you're

00:23:22.240 exactly right. I actually had the privilege of touching it, but unfortunately professors can't

00:23:28.520 afford $400,000 origin of species books. But let me ask you this. This is actually, I think he's

00:23:34.560 a maybe a german or a maybe an austrian economist i picked up this book and you'll see in a second

00:23:41.360 why i have it up i picked up this book probably around 2001 and the reason i had picked it up

00:23:48.340 back then uh harry birth is because i was very interested in how you would apply you know the cold

00:23:56.500 framework of economics to something as beautiful as art that's exactly what he's doing he's an

00:24:04.180 economist who's viewing art the collection of art as a investment strategy so without

00:24:10.860 soiling the beauty and the purity of collecting books just for the love of books is there are

00:24:18.500 there any studies that have looked at how book collecting and certainly at the level that you're

00:24:24.840 dealing with could serve as a valuable diversified investment strategy yes of course by the way i

00:24:32.680 I know Bruno Frey very well.

00:24:34.520 Oh, wow.

00:24:35.820 He's Swiss.

00:24:36.940 He's Swiss, thank you.

00:24:38.240 He's Swiss.

00:24:39.580 And he's one of the most important economists in Switzerland.

00:24:48.200 And I'm reading his books and his articles.

00:24:51.960 But what you are asking is how to put a price on an important, on a fine, on an old, on a rare book.

00:25:09.060 I do this not by comparing the prices of other dealers.

00:25:17.600 I do this out of my belly.

00:25:22.880 You know, it's after 49 years, you know what these things are worth.

00:25:31.540 And some, of course, may be a little bit exaggerated or overrated.

00:25:38.680 Others, underrated. Everything occurs.

00:25:41.660 and i think my way of doing this is the collector's way and what happens when you get

00:25:53.400 let's go back to your you know middle ages the 15th century book yes it'll be great if it's

00:25:59.860 immaculate in its in its form but if it isn't do you usually send it out to a expert restorer

00:26:09.860 that can specialize in doing this or do you have these kinds of services in-house and how often

00:26:15.580 does it happen where you're not receiving it in perfect immaculate conception form i do this only

00:26:22.880 if the binding is concerned you know i have a very good bookbinder i have several but i have

00:26:31.520 a very good bookbinder in Oxford, and he does this impeccably.

00:26:39.520 Normally, I do not buy books that are in mediocre or bad condition.

00:26:47.720 Normally, I do not do this, even if they are important texts.

00:26:52.880 I don't do that because you never will like it how many labor gets into the binding new and so on and so on.

00:27:10.020 So, as I said, manuscripts that I bought are very often in very, very battered 18th or 19th century bindings.

00:27:28.640 and I think that they have to be replaced by good modern books.

00:27:44.160 I'll show you one.

00:27:45.240 Please.

00:27:46.820 For example, this is a manuscript, 1465, 1470, Flanders,

00:27:57.300 and this was in a totally battered binding

00:28:00.820 with the covers off and so on

00:28:05.080 and so I had it bound

00:28:06.680 in the way that these manuscripts

00:28:10.060 were bound in the 15th century

00:28:11.880 in velvet, you see

00:28:14.600 by the way, just to show you

00:28:18.220 how this

00:28:19.300 oh my goodness, look at this

00:28:22.620 you're killing me

00:28:25.280 And this is preserved like that from one end to the other.

00:28:32.640 It's amazing.

00:28:33.800 So what happened?

00:28:34.680 I mean, you're clearly someone who's not doing this only because, oh, you found a nice business to do.

00:28:40.380 You're in love with your books.

00:28:42.200 So if I were in your position, I would be the worst book dealer of all time because I never want to sell any of the books once I get them.

00:28:50.540 do you suffer from this where okay i just got this holy grail book that i've been dreaming

00:28:56.360 about for the past 20 years now here comes some wealthy guy who says all right i'll i'll pay you

00:29:01.680 whatever you want and you go you know what i i'm not selling this one yes i i totally understand

00:29:09.620 you god but i have so many you know so you're so the business part of your brain takes over

00:29:18.160 I have many, many hundreds, even thousands of books of which everyone is one that I wanted to have and of which I never could have imagined to sell it.

00:29:38.400 But I have so many and we all have to survive.

00:29:43.540 So only some books that are totally unimportant are not for sale.

00:29:51.380 Everything else is for sale.

00:29:53.540 Imagine in 2024 when we had, after the COVID pandemics, really great problems.

00:30:04.360 I sold my whole collection of medieval manuscripts, 192 medieval manuscripts.

00:30:15.900 That was the greatest and the biggest collection of medieval manuscripts in the world in private hands.

00:30:22.740 I sold it because I was not able to do without that.

00:30:29.600 Now, is this sold to a single collector? The entire collection goes to one? Or is it, you know, multiple people?

00:30:40.200 The problem is that the one who bought it is not even a collector.

00:30:46.520 but I

00:30:48.900 very much hope that

00:30:50.920 by acquiring

00:30:52.720 my manuscripts among

00:30:54.860 which there were

00:30:56.260 really

00:30:58.440 beauties

00:31:00.940 that you cannot imagine

00:31:02.160 that he gets

00:31:04.120 that he becomes

00:31:05.560 a collector

00:31:08.660 by going

00:31:10.960 through them. No, he's

00:31:12.540 a billionaire

00:31:13.680 and

00:31:15.340 And it was his, yeah, it was his.

00:31:21.800 Do you ever see, so I'm a, in addition to being a huge lover of books,

00:31:28.440 I'm a huge lover of Belgian shepherds, the types of dogs.

00:31:32.680 And so I remember when at one point my wife and I were thinking of breeding

00:31:37.240 our male and female, that we were very concerned because we don't want to give

00:31:43.380 away, which we think are like our children to just any random person who comes, that we have

00:31:49.940 to decide whether you're worthy of having that gorgeous Belgian shepherd. Do you ever interact

00:31:57.260 with someone where you say, you know what? I mean, you say this privately. You don't say this to them.

00:32:02.960 You say it in your private thoughts. I don't think this guy is worthy of keeping these 10 books.

00:32:09.160 and so for some reason you decide not to sell it to this person

00:32:13.160 because the consumer was not worthy of that.

00:32:16.800 Of course.

00:32:17.660 Really?

00:32:18.200 That has happened many times before.

00:32:21.080 And what is it usually that turns you off about them?

00:32:24.540 Is that they're not showing the love and reverence

00:32:27.640 that you'd want them to show for these books?

00:32:30.800 Yes, exactly.

00:32:32.000 If he only wants things that would raise his status, so it is really exactly that, and lacking intelligence.

00:32:50.280 as I said

00:32:54.400 dozens of times I have

00:32:57.120 said no I won't

00:32:59.280 sell this to this guy

00:33:01.520 it would be a pity

00:33:05.460 right

00:33:06.880 amazing

00:33:08.020 what else give us

00:33:10.700 I don't know if you have anything close by

00:33:13.060 but do you have any other books

00:33:15.360 that you might want to show off

00:33:17.600 and show us some of these incredible stories

00:33:19.480 Do you have anything in front of you that you could show us?

00:33:22.400 Yes.

00:33:23.200 Go.

00:33:23.500 I prepared some books from six centuries.

00:33:32.860 Wow.

00:33:33.140 So I show you one manuscript,

00:33:38.820 and then I show you one incunable from the 15th century,

00:33:44.880 two books from the 16th century,

00:33:47.260 two books from the 17th century.

00:33:49.360 Unbelievable. Go.

00:33:51.060 Three, four books from the 18th century and so on.

00:33:54.360 So let's start with this.

00:33:56.280 You have seen the other book.

00:33:58.160 This was a Flemish manuscript, very important.

00:34:03.660 It's from the circle of Simon Marmion,

00:34:10.060 who was the so-called Prince de l'Enluminure,

00:34:13.880 the Prince of the Illumination in Valenciennes.

00:34:17.060 and this is a

00:34:19.820 French book

00:34:22.260 a French manuscript

00:34:24.220 Can you put it up?

00:34:26.940 Yeah, yeah. Wow

00:34:28.240 Gorgeous

00:34:30.120 Okay

00:34:32.780 This is interesting

00:34:34.620 because it was made

00:34:36.760 for the

00:34:37.440 first president of the

00:34:40.720 parliament of Paris

00:34:42.060 Charles Guillard

00:34:43.560 who had it made for his wife 0.66

00:34:46.920 and this is his wife

00:34:48.700 put it up

00:34:50.160 this way

00:34:51.520 to your right

00:34:53.200 yes yes

00:34:55.260 which one is his wife 0.96

00:34:58.320 the one that's kneeling with the black 0.90

00:35:00.660 yes okay

00:35:01.500 this is his wife and this is Mary

00:35:04.400 with the Pieta

00:35:05.840 with Jesus on her lap

00:35:08.020 wow it's in French

00:35:10.000 that is French

00:35:11.980 and this is the

00:35:14.060 this here

00:35:16.240 are the armories of Charles Guillard

00:35:20.420 and of this wife,

00:35:22.320 whom we know by name.

00:35:24.720 She was called Jeanne de Vignacourt

00:35:28.160 and she was so important

00:35:30.220 that some poets at the court,

00:35:34.760 at the French court of Francis I,

00:35:37.960 dedicated their books to her.

00:35:41.380 Wow.

00:35:41.980 So, I mean, this is really important

00:35:44.520 And the painter of these miniatures is the so-called master of the Petrarch's Triumphs, one of the finest manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale in France.

00:35:58.780 Wow. So this is what, 15th century?

00:36:01.480 This is around 1500.

00:36:04.900 Okay.

00:36:05.200 The other was about 1565. This is about 1500.

00:36:09.020 All right.

00:36:09.540 And now I show you, I have to tell you something.

00:36:15.620 My most important collection is of printed books of ours.

00:36:21.440 You know what books of ours are?

00:36:23.460 No.

00:36:24.780 Books of ours are layman's prayer books.

00:36:29.800 So you know perhaps the breviary of the priests?

00:36:33.240 Yes.

00:36:33.720 And the Book of Hours is a sort of shorter breviary for laymen.

00:36:42.580 Sorry, Hours, O-U-R-S, or H-O-U-R-S? 0.99

00:36:47.640 H, Book of Hours.

00:36:49.380 Hours, okay.

00:36:49.880 Because the Christian people had to pray eight times a day several prayers at certain hours.

00:37:08.160 Hours, okay, got it.

00:37:09.360 This is Book of Hours, you know.

00:37:10.880 Perfect.

00:37:11.100 Starting with midnight, this is matutin, and so on and so on.

00:37:16.200 And so I assembled a collection of printed books of ours from 1487 to 1550 or so.

00:37:27.720 We are now printing the last three volumes of our catalogue, which then will have 12 folio volumes with about 6,000 pages and about 7,000 color illustrations.

00:37:46.520 I'll just show you one.

00:37:48.400 Sure.

00:37:49.040 This is 1499, the 15th of October, 1499.

00:37:55.920 Wow.

00:37:56.720 gorgeous gorgeous now you i would imagine harry bird that when you're when you're touching these

00:38:05.640 books shouldn't you be wearing gloves or something so that your hand oil doesn't come on it or

00:38:10.460 something wow this is gorgeous no no no no no no no no that's uh uh gloves are it's a bad thing

00:38:18.840 it's the most insane thing uh um in in books why is that that's interesting why is that

00:38:26.120 Because if you have gloves on your hands, you lose any sensibility, you know?

00:38:34.940 You can...

00:38:38.940 Tactile.

00:38:44.840 Oh, tactile, yes, yes.

00:38:46.420 You lose the tactile feel, yeah, okay, sure.

00:38:49.260 But look at this book.

00:38:52.180 It's unbelievable.

00:38:54.280 Gorgeous.

00:38:56.120 What is interesting about this book is that it is the personal, the personal book of ours of the French King Louis XII.

00:39:05.340 What?

00:39:06.020 Yeah.

00:39:08.140 You have here his armories.

00:39:12.800 And it is printed on the 15th of October, 1499, the birthday of his first child, Claude de France.

00:39:20.820 15th of October. I'm 13th of October. Almost the same.

00:39:24.120 There you go.

00:39:24.740 Wow, incredible

00:39:26.540 I mean, this is

00:39:27.800 And in my collection of printed books of ours

00:39:32.120 There are the books of ours of Charles VIII

00:39:36.360 Of his sister, Anne de France

00:39:39.860 Anne de Beaujeu

00:39:40.700 Of Louis XII

00:39:42.060 Of Claude de France

00:39:43.740 And so on and so on

00:39:45.140 We have 432 books of ours

00:39:50.040 Printed books of ours

00:39:51.200 So for someone like you

00:39:53.040 who's so driven by the aesthetics of the books, who's driven by the tactile sense.

00:39:59.680 You must see it as the greatest blasphemy that electronic books exist, that audio books exist,

00:40:09.120 or no, you're pragmatic. You want people to consume books in any form, but you recognize that

00:40:15.800 you occupy a space, or do you think that they are destroying the kinds of love that you have

00:40:22.600 for the because i i know what you're feeling because even when i walk into a used bookstore

00:40:26.860 and i'm only going to buy a 20 book i want to be in there like an archaeologist i want to feel the

00:40:33.420 dust i want to climb behind to get that book so what's your feeling about all these new delivery

00:40:40.500 systems of consuming books well um they do not matter for me right i have to say they don't

00:40:49.280 matter but i um i am pretty indifferent you know uh it's not that i say uh this should be

00:40:58.880 this should be canceled damned or canceled or whatever i know that these will never lose their

00:41:09.220 value and their beauty and so on.

00:41:11.620 So, to the contrary, one has to say, we were at very important fairs at Maastricht in New

00:41:21.720 York, at the TFAF in New York, in France, of course, in Paris, and it is very gratifying

00:41:33.300 to see that young people come and are just blown away.

00:41:44.180 Overwhelmed.

00:41:45.120 Overwhelmed, yeah, and that is good.

00:41:47.540 So this is 1499, and this is 1508.

00:41:59.300 Wow.

00:42:00.060 Now, many of these seem to all have sort of religious iconography.

00:42:05.440 Would it be safe to say that many of these within that time period would all be religious-based?

00:42:12.720 Not all of them.

00:42:14.780 But, of course, as these were prayer books, the main illustrations are from the New Testament, of course.

00:42:25.680 But, you know, you have to think of the fact that perhaps in this book, there are about 1,120 smaller and larger illustrations.

00:42:39.980 And of them, one third is totally non-religious.

00:42:45.260 So it is about historical, even erotic, and so on and so on.

00:42:52.660 Do you typically, in a given book, are the illustrations done by a singular artist, or you might have a book that has 19 different artists that contributed the illustrations for that book?

00:43:07.300 No, I mean we do this in a very thorough way

00:43:15.520 Perhaps the book of ours of Louis XII was painted by two court artists

00:43:24.820 We know them by name

00:43:26.320 The one is the master of Martinville

00:43:28.800 And the other is the master of Philippa of Gelders

00:43:31.840 And they made this book unique by applying gold leaf instead of liquid gold through the parchment.

00:43:45.560 By the way, these are all on parchment.

00:43:48.100 Of the 432 printed books of ours, 296 are on parchment.

00:43:57.460 it's interesting that you said golden leaf because we were talking yes you were talking

00:44:03.900 about uh the austria and of course i mentioned this book one of my favorite if not my favorite

00:44:09.640 artists is an austrian artist also known to use klimt yeah so of course so my my wife bought me

00:44:16.900 two years ago of course a replica but it it almost looks as it's the real one of uh the portrait of

00:44:24.220 adele blach bauer uh i don't and we actually i took my wife and children to new york city

00:44:32.600 to the new gallery to actually see it in person uh so okay so having go ahead go ahead

00:44:40.220 wrong as lord i bought it too yeah exactly and and i don't know if you know the story with him

00:44:46.300 he he said that he was so in love with klimt when he was a you know young guy that he said you know

00:44:53.340 one day if i ever have the means i will buy these and it turns out that he he fulfilled his his

00:45:00.260 passion and his dream let me ask you this one of the things i talk about in which book is it i can't

00:45:05.560 see it here this book in in oh i guess you can't see it either it's it's my happiness book so i

00:45:11.700 published a book in 2023 on you know how to live the good life and so on and at one point i talk

00:45:17.880 about, you know, if you want to find occupational happiness, then you should sort of seek something

00:45:24.740 that allows you to immerse yourself in your creative impulse. So in my case, the fact that

00:45:32.600 I write books, I write papers, I create content, I'm always excited because I'm always creating.

00:45:38.940 And of course, that gives me purpose and meaning, right? So I'm thinking that for someone like you,

00:45:44.800 right you're not selling chewing gum or cars right because there you could be selling those

00:45:50.860 without having a you know a passionate love for the product because you're just a businessman

00:45:56.360 who's you know who's making money in your case of course because you have to have this a priori love

00:46:02.480 for the product that you are selling does that immediately guarantee that you've lived the life

00:46:08.860 of purpose and meaning because you feel like you're doing something that's a lot bigger and

00:46:13.500 more important than just being a you know a mercantile guy well of course that's true

00:46:21.700 but I would not feel very much elevated over my colleagues but of course it's true you know I mean

00:46:32.020 if you are able to collect and collect in the way that we do this is a unheard of privilege

00:46:42.600 it's quite clear

00:46:44.760 and of course

00:46:47.200 this also means that

00:46:49.200 you act

00:46:51.300 differently

00:46:52.200 as a dealer

00:46:55.280 and this

00:46:56.760 for instance was one of the

00:46:59.100 reasons that

00:47:00.620 nearly all of

00:47:02.960 my clients

00:47:04.360 that I had and I had many

00:47:07.120 very important clients

00:47:08.700 became friends

00:47:10.140 right you know it's uh it is it is it is necessary that you become friends with your

00:47:19.080 with your clients and uh they love you and you love them and uh this also uh makes any

00:47:28.080 um cheating or so impossible right right i mean i can imagine how when you're dealing with the

00:47:37.660 kind of market that you're dealing with, that when you said you fall in love with each other,

00:47:42.760 there is an inherent intimacy that comes, right? I mean, I can go and buy a Toyota without ever

00:47:49.660 feeling a great sense of warmth and intimacy for my car dealer. But if I'm navigating around the

00:47:56.980 books behind you, it's very difficult to not build this bond with the owner of the car. So I

00:48:02.960 completely understand that do you wake up today heribert with the same kind of rubbing your hands

00:48:09.760 with gleeful anticipation as you did 45 plus years ago when you started uh or like most things in life

00:48:18.140 you get to a stage where i've seen it all i've done it all you can't ever throw a curveball at

00:48:24.720 me to surprise me not at all no i'm i'm still uh you're still a kid excited uh when i find something

00:48:36.900 really fine as i was uh 40 47 years ago i show you some other things please

00:48:43.960 this is the third

00:48:46.720 printed book of ours

00:48:48.260 and this is

00:48:50.040 Geoffroy

00:48:52.600 Torri

00:48:53.080 1526

00:48:54.760 one of two copies

00:48:58.180 on vellum

00:48:58.960 and

00:49:01.360 wow

00:49:10.640 lift it up a bit

00:49:12.840 yes perfect

00:49:13.560 wow wow wow wow wow wow this is in french yes this is in in latin and in french okay gorgeous

00:49:23.720 gorgeous uh well that's 16th century i show you a nice binding from the 16th century oh my goodness

00:49:33.360 this is leather

00:49:36.120 this is leather and it was

00:49:38.720 painted with wax

00:49:40.680 wax collars

00:49:42.760 wax farbe mosaique

00:49:44.760 you know

00:49:45.240 it is painted and

00:49:47.440 this small landscape here

00:49:50.600 is unique that doesn't exist

00:49:52.840 in 16th century

00:49:54.220 it is from the very important

00:49:56.900 collection of Fairfax

00:49:58.840 Murray and

00:50:00.280 Lucius Wilmerding and so on

00:50:02.880 And the book itself is Aristoteles, translated by Boethius.

00:50:13.460 So, I mean, this is also the dialectics of Aristoteles.

00:50:18.060 Incredible.

00:50:19.320 Wow.

00:50:20.380 Are there still any artisans, if we could put it in this way,

00:50:26.140 or artists that are trained in the art of making?

00:50:31.160 And by the way, one of my cousins married to my mother's sister, their name is Bookbinder.

00:50:39.820 And actually, one of the sons became a very well-respected cardiologist.

00:50:46.020 In Arabic, you say Bookbinder, but in English or German or whatever, it'll be Bookbinder.

00:50:51.460 So are there now this kind of ongoing tradition to train artisans to be these incredible, elaborate, either book illustrators or bookbinders, or are there fewer and fewer as the years go on?

00:51:08.220 Yes, there are still some very good bookbinders.

00:51:13.460 By the way, one of the most important piano players in Austria is Rudolf Buchbinder.

00:51:20.520 Oh, and so you said it in almost the same way I said it in Arabic.

00:51:26.160 Buchbinder, he's a Beethoven interpret.

00:51:30.900 But of course, you find good bookbinders, especially in England and in France, also some in Germany.

00:51:39.500 I think there are a lot of them in the United States.

00:51:44.620 And it's the same with illustrators.

00:51:47.640 But of course, with the illustrations, that's always a sort of taste, a sort of taste.

00:52:04.260 But of course, I mean, things like that are impossible to make.

00:52:10.100 I'll show you one other thing.

00:52:14.120 So this is more cloth, right?

00:52:17.640 This is only a satchel.

00:52:19.900 Okay.

00:52:21.600 You see here?

00:52:22.460 Incredible.

00:52:25.320 And this is the very binding of the Bible of the Saint Carl Borromeus,

00:52:32.880 Charles Borromeus.

00:52:34.880 You see?

00:52:35.460 Gorgeous.

00:52:35.880 At the end, there is a treaty in which he says

00:52:44.420 that he has given this to his

00:52:46.480 preferred

00:52:48.080 pupil

00:52:50.300 and this

00:52:52.380 was made by nuns 1.00

00:52:54.800 the satchel

00:52:55.960 oh my goodness, you know as you're

00:52:58.340 showing me all this beauty

00:52:59.780 Harry Bird, I'm worried now

00:53:02.280 that, so I'll post this of course

00:53:04.500 in an audio visual meet like

00:53:06.240 on YouTube, on my X platform

00:53:08.000 but the people who will listen

00:53:10.440 to this on podcast

00:53:11.700 which is only audio, I'm going

00:53:14.300 to have to tell them please go and watch the thing because they're missing all this beauty

00:53:18.720 this is fantastic at this current point in your career i'll wrap it up soon i don't want to take

00:53:24.120 more of your time as you you are hopefully you have many many more years ahead are there some

00:53:29.920 things today that you are looking to achieve within your business that you that you've yet to do

00:53:37.780 well achieve

00:53:40.440 I would like to

00:53:42.740 finalize

00:53:43.920 my collections

00:53:45.680 and then try to

00:53:48.360 not sell them

00:53:50.780 but

00:53:51.780 make some

00:53:55.120 foundations

00:53:56.600 of them

00:53:57.600 I have the largest

00:54:00.620 collection of printed books of ours in the world

00:54:02.900 it's two times what the

00:54:04.800 Bibliothèque Nationale in France has

00:54:06.580 They have 202, and we have 432.

00:54:10.500 And I have a collection of illustrated books of the 18th century,

00:54:18.580 2,500 editions with 7,000 volumes.

00:54:24.180 I'll show you only one.

00:54:27.620 This is the finest illustrated book.

00:54:31.620 It's La Fontaine.

00:54:36.580 And it's the only illuminated copy.

00:54:39.600 Okay, this is not feeling very religious right there.

00:54:43.300 No, no, that's not.

00:54:44.680 It's La Fontaine.

00:54:45.940 The Comte des Nouvelles.

00:54:48.380 Yes, yes.

00:54:49.420 Wow, that's gorgeous.

00:54:50.460 But I mean, there is no other illuminated copy in the world.

00:54:55.320 Here's another one.

00:54:57.800 Gorgeous.

00:54:58.840 Absolutely exquisite.

00:55:00.660 Unbelievable.

00:55:02.380 Do you, if you, forgive me for asking a personal question,

00:55:04.860 But is this something that, as you're thinking about your legacy, is this something that you would want your family to be involved in, to continue your legacy? And if yes, are they interested? If no, can you make them interested? What's the dynamics of how we could extend the legacy forever?

00:55:23.880 Yeah, that's a good and a difficult question, because I know that no one of my family would ever be as enthusiastic and passionate as I am.

00:55:42.040 So I think the only idea that I can have is to think they will be cared for.

00:55:56.620 But I would like to do these foundations for, say, the next 30, 40 years.

00:56:05.940 It's not possible to do more.

00:56:10.000 By the way, this is Madame de Pompadour.

00:56:15.120 Oh, wow.

00:56:16.620 And this was a book given to her.

00:56:20.940 And this is all inlaid.

00:56:25.020 You know, all these are inlaid.

00:56:29.100 Unbelievable.

00:56:31.000 Anything else you want to add before we wrap this up?

00:56:34.440 is there maybe any advice you have

00:56:37.980 for aspiring young book collectors

00:56:41.100 how they should start

00:56:42.280 any of your sage wisdom would be appreciated

00:56:46.080 yeah

00:56:49.580 I think

00:56:51.020 what one could tell them is

00:56:54.600 to

00:56:55.920 to

00:57:00.640 it's it's difficult you know um if they are if they are

00:57:09.180 willing to go to books to go for books everything is possible everything just start with something

00:57:21.380 that you like, and then if you continue, it will grow into something that is satisfying.

00:57:36.300 And this is the only thing I can say.

00:57:40.400 You can buy a book for $100, and it's just marvelous.

00:57:50.540 and you can buy one for $3 million.

00:57:55.360 Right.

00:57:55.620 And so everything is possible.

00:58:00.120 So it really has to be founded on interest.

00:58:08.880 Actually, I love that answer because I recently had,

00:58:12.160 and I think I shared it with your assistant,

00:58:14.400 I had Tom Ayling, who's a younger antiquarian dealer

00:58:18.420 out of Britain.

00:58:19.300 And I had asked him a similar question, because I think a lot of people have the incorrect view that to be, you know, a rare book antiquarian dealer, you have to have very deep pocket.

00:58:33.640 I mean, you have to be Heribert, right?

00:58:35.060 You have to be already somebody who speaks with a European accent.

00:58:39.320 But the reality is we can all start on that journey at our own prices, right?

00:58:45.140 I mean, I've bought books, which to me seem incalculably amazing for $20, right?

00:58:51.600 I bought a Kipling, Just So Stories for, I don't know what it was, maybe $22 from 1903.

00:58:58.680 Well, I would have thought that that should go for a lot more, but it brought me as much

00:59:03.040 joy, the fact that I found this and it's now in my collection than had it been priced 50

00:59:08.460 times more.

00:59:09.240 So I think your point is really well taken.

00:59:11.340 you could start at whatever price point makes you happy

00:59:14.760 and then you're off enjoying yourself on that journey

00:59:17.680 exactly

00:59:18.920 that's a love of books

00:59:20.540 love of books

00:59:21.720 bibliophily

00:59:23.080 and nobody exemplifies this like you do

00:59:26.900 by the way

00:59:27.400 I don't know if you saw this

00:59:29.040 can you see this?

00:59:34.840 yeah

00:59:35.000 sunduku

00:59:36.380 sunduku

00:59:37.980 right

00:59:38.560 which basically means the obsessive

00:59:41.040 love to acquire books

00:59:43.240 and I think we both

00:59:44.780 suffer from that affliction

00:59:46.760 what a pleasure to have you on the show

00:59:49.780 please stay on the line so we can say goodbye

00:59:51.600 offline and come back

00:59:53.600 anytime, thank you so much for coming on the show

00:59:55.280 thank you

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - April 06, 2026

Heribert Tenschert - World's Leading Dealer of Rare and Antiquarian Books (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_981)

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