Tintin Forums

This is a long story so bear with me!

About 20 years ago I was browsing in a second hand bookshop in North West London and came across a hardback version of Red Rackham’s Treasure. I’d enjoyed the Tintin stories when I was a child so bought it for no other reason than sentiment. I think I paid £1.99 cash! It had an inscription on page 3 which said, Happy Christmas to Jeoffrey and Paula! Moue �" Chan and the name Alan Mark Chapman but was in a sound condition. The book sat in my bookshelf for many years getting dusty and being ignored. I then got married and had children and my son grew to love the Tintin adventures. He read the Red Rackman story and I bought him many of the titles in the series.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. We decided, as a family, to have a big tidy out and domestic reorganization. Clutter and possessions had taken over our small Victorian terraced house. Trips were organized to the local charity shop, a garage sale was arranged and a few items were auctioned on eBay. My son and I discussed which items went where. We wrestled over the decision about the Red Rackham Tintin book. Although in good condition for its age (Printed in 1952) it was showing signs of wear. Charity shop, garage sale or eBay? Difficult decision.

We decided to list the book on eBay. I took a picture of it and listed the book with a starting price of £4.99. I half expected the book to receive no bids and having to make another trip to the Charity shop.

How wrong I was to be! Within hours of the auction starting I was inundated with questions and queries from Tintin collectors from all over Europe. More photos of the book were taken and sent to interested parties and then the private bids started to arrive. What seemed like silly money was being offered for the book. I could not believe what was happening.

I stopped the auction and started to research some background on the book. That is when I discovered the facts about the early English translations published by Casterman in 1952 and sometimes referred to as the Holy Grail by some Tintin aficionados.

My son and I have decided to relist the book on eBay with a more realistic starting price. This 1952 Casteman Red Rackham's Treasure deserves to be owned by a real Tintin fan, someone who will really treasure the book and not neglect it and let it get dusty like its previous owners!!

Maybe ebay is not the place for it, might even be more sensible to get it properly valued and take it to a real auction house. Besides nothing wrong with a £5 starting price, it'll jump up fast enough.

I'll give you a tenner for it!

R

Posted: 27 Sep 2006 10:43:25
Thanks for the tenner R!
The book is being listed on eBay on Thursday night with 5 photo's.
Best Wishes.
Shamie
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I notice all the bidders on this book are from Germany. Has Tintin a big following there?

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[Moderator action: combined 2 consecutive posts.]

Funny! - I was reading about this edition last night in Harry Thompsons book and I forget the exact words he uses but basically he says whoever has the book sitting on his shelf somewhere is really lucky and soon to be rich...:)
can you post the link to the site - or let us know what you got for it
congrats-

Hi...The book is listed under 'Tintin books' on eBay and the auction closes on Sunday evening.

The money made will be donated to the 'St. Margaret's Challenge' run by St. Margaret's Church in North West London to fund 'The Amos Trust' which does life changing work with street children in South Africa.

Best Wishes.

Shamie

shamie
the name Alan Mark Chapman

Errr… I’ve looked at the sale and your book seems to have been inscribed “Alan Mark Piper” - prehaps you have crossed the name in your book with Mark (David) Chapman, the guy who shot John Lennon…? Unless of course you have two copies of this rare book… ;-)

The money made will be donated to the 'St. Margaret's Challenge' run by St. Margaret's Church in North West London to fund 'The Amos Trust' which does life changing work with street children in South Africa.

That sounds a highly generous move - my congratulations to you.

Great - one thing though... I always go to ebay france to check for the really rare things...I used to always just go to www.ebay.com thinking it covered everywhere - but then someone here mentioned you can set it up like that...

whatever - The point is make sure it shows up on the french site too...even though its an english edition.

A huge 'thank you' to the Tintin community for all your support, help and advice over the last 10 days.

Hopefully the money made will make a difference to some young lives in South Africa.

Best wishes.

Shamie

Went for over £1000, great for the charity. I was prepared to go to £500 for it

R

Great Scot!!! What makes it worth so much?

Captain C