I only ask because I’m trying to get a sense of what exactly I would need to do to insert myself into your will in order to inherit this fine collection.

I could offer you your own shelf – at eye level of course – in my library, and I think a brass plaque engraved with “From the collection of …” could be arranged.

Eagerly awaiting your reply.

Guns n Roses tried that same route with “Use Your Illusions I and II”.

And, if it can’t be bought at a used book store or Barnes & Noble, I’m not interested in it. :)

Dude.

Your street cred just went back to zero.

I ask only because I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to make money by publishing two copies of multiple short books about Texas Longhorn football, keeping one, and then offering to sell you the other copy for $100.

Sort of like Scipio splitting his Fiesta Bowl recap into 4 blog entries.

I also have managed to complete my collection of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football in recent years, and that would not have been possible with out Ebay. You just don’t see those for sale in used book stores anymore.

Darrell Royal Talks Football, by Blackie Sherrod

Here Come the Texas Longhorns, by Lou Maysel (There are two copies of this excellent book at HPB on North Lamar right now, as well as one copy of the sequel that was published in 1979)

When Football Becomes War, by Robert Heard (this is the best history of the Texas/OU rivalry, published in the early 1980s – HPB also had a copy of this available last time I was there. There is also a copy of it at a used bookstore on 12th near Lamar, near the ACC bookstore)

The Darrell Royal Story – by Jimmy Banks (published in 1964, the first bio of DKR, and still the best)

The best recent publication is the University of Texas Football Vault, by Steve Richardson. This was published last year, and is the most comprehensive collection of Longhorn history and memorabilia ever put together. Sam’s club has tons of them on sale right now for $29.95, which is half the original price.

Here’s the paradox:

Before the Internet, one often spent decades looking for certain books, usually to fill out a series or a collection; when one stumbled across the “last” volume in some random, out-of-the-way bookstore in Wales, or Berkeley, or Northampton, the feeling was one of great pleasure. I had a friend who looked for decades, for instance, for John G. Bourke’s “Scatalogical Rites of All Nations,” and–though he kept hearing whispers about people who had heard of people who had once seen it–never found it. It wouldn’t have been special if it hadn’t been elusive.

These days, people rarely have to go anywhere to find something, and it’s hard to think of a title that’s not immediately available for the right price on the Internet. So you had a very, very rare experience indeed–something *not* being available for purchase right away. Congrats on finding your Grail.