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Permalink Reply by crazyrabbits23 on December 21, 2021 at 4:08pm

In my experience, finding long inscriptions are usually rare -- and are usually done in a hand that's not the author's "signature style". (Some can be justifiably referred to as "association copies", where the recipient is a close friend or contact of the signer.)

I have a book I purchased second-hand where the author (a noted Canadian journalist) wrote a paragraph of text slamming his former employer and referring to them as a stopgap so he could get his first and second books published -- it was clear in that case that it was written to a close friend and never intended to be recirculated in any fashion.

There are collectors who go for association copies (I'm one of them), but I do agree that it may also limit your pool of buyers, particularly if it's written text that's extremely esoteric and reliant on the connection between the signer and recipient. Forgers typically won't go to the extent of trying to fake paragraphs of text -- they're barely competent enough to try and fake signatures as it is (and most are easily caught out).

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