Frank Reiss spent months negotiating to buy a rare, first-edition, first-run copy of “Gone With the Wind.” Now, he’s putting it up for sale.
The reason? Atlanta’s Snowpocalypse 2014.
It seems the storm that shut down a metro area also put some small businesses, at least temporarily, on slippery ground.
Reiss, the owner of A Cappella Books, had to cancel five events, including appearances by best-selling authors Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Stashower. He estimates he lost at least $20,000 in refunded ticket sales, canceled contracts and lost revenue from planned book sales at the events.
“This is money that I counted on being in the bank to pay bills and keep things running smoothly,” said Reiss, who opened the independent Atlanta bookstore in 1989. “It’s been a difficult week for us.”
To recoup some of that lost revenue, Reiss wants to sell the May 1936 signed copy of Margaret Mitchell’s classic, which he bought last summer from the great-niece of Medora Field Perkerson, an author, journalist and one of the Mitchell’s close friends. It was a gift to Perkerson’s mother and is inscribed “To Mrs. Robert Field with a world of love Margaret Mitchell.”
Reiss thinks in ordinary times the book, which is in its original dust jacket and is in very good condition, is worth $25,000. He declined to say how much he paid for it.
Minus the snowstorm, the bookstore was doing rather well, Reiss said. Over the years, independent bookstores have felt the crunch and some have gone out of business, unable to compete with larger chains, Internet sales and people reading on tablets.
“The last several years, we’ve been in a pretty good spot,” he said. “We are modestly profitable and things look encouraging for the future.”
A friend suggested he hold a benefit, but Reiss nixed that idea. “I’m an entrepreneur,” he said. “I thought I needed to find a creative way to get out of this mess.”
Elizabeth Youngs, Perkerson’s great-neice and a public relations executive in South Carolina, said the family has several copies of the first-run, first-edition “Gone With the Wind” and related items.
“There was no particular reason,” Youngs said of her decision to sell. “I didn’t want to hang on to so many valuable things. I don’t really have anyone to pass them on to. I was curious to know what a book like that would sell for. I’ve seen them on eBay, and they don’t sell super fast. It’s a very niche market.”
She declined to give the sales price, other than to say it was “very reasonable.”
Connie Sutherland, the director of the Marietta Gone With the Wind Museum, said, if authentic, the May 1936 book may be a prize worth having. She said such copies, known as “true” first editions, are rare and were primarily sent to members of the press. To have a copy that is in very good shape, with the dust jacket, signed and given to her best friend only increases its value in the marketplace.
“Some will say just her signature is more valuable than a personalized one; others will say not so,” Sutherland said. “If it were (signed) to you or me, it may not add value to the book, but for it to be someone of note, who was instrumental in her life, I think that’s a valuable book.”
Reiss always planned to sell the book; the storm just put those efforts on fast forward.
“I don’t expect a book of that value to sell immediately,” he said. “I’ve always been serious about selling. What I’m serious about now is maybe taking less than its value to help me out of this serious cash crunch.”
