Papers and Books Dating Back to 1789 on Sale at Georgia Archives

Visitors to the Georgia State Archives can take history home with them this weekend. The document repository is holding its first used and rare book sale. The merchandise is donated, not part of the collection.

More than 15,000 collected papers and books, some dating as far back as 1789, go on sale Friday at the Georgia State Archives. This is the first used and rare books sale for the archives, which hold official Georgia historical documents. Most of the items are being sold for $4.00 or less.

"We really want to position ourselves as the sale for good quality history and genealogy books on the East Coast," said Grant Wainscott, who coordinates the sale in Clayton County. "These aren't the kinds of things you can buy off the shelf easily."

Among the rare buys are a Jerusalem Bible illustrated by surrealist painter Salvador Dali, leather-bound Congressional papers from the late 1700s, a 1909 publication of Georgia's Confederate Records and books signed by former President Jimmy Carter. The items on sale have been donated and do not come from the archives' collection. I suspect these items will go for much more than the $4.00 price mentioned ealier.

Profits from the sale will be used to fund the archives' effort to make their historical records available in digital form. The sale is scheduled from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.