separate pages from incomplete books: a query

[<MRUPS@BROOK.BITNET>]

This question is being forwarded for your consideration on behalf of a
friend, but I'd be very interested in the answer, myself:

>had an opportunity to purchase for $400 a framed, matted copy of a page
>from an original King James Bible. The person who owned it showed me the
>literature about it, and here's the story: An incomplete Bible was acquired
>by a gentleman who decided that, since it was already incomplete, he would
>sell it by the page, thereby giving others the opportunity to share in the
>book's historical richness. Most pages were sold for $400, but special
>pages (illustrated or of great religious/historical significance) were sold for
>more. Each page was mounted with acid free paper and in such a way that you can
>see the other side of the Bible page when you look at the back of the
>frame. It comes with a statement of authenticity, but I don't know whether
>it is signed by an authentic expert. Someone who was with me said that the
>paper on which the Bible was printed looked authentic -- he's an archivist
>and felt qualified to make that judgment.
>
>I did not make the purchase although I still think about it. Are such items
>a dime a dozen, or was this a legitimate deal?

My answer was that I'd seen plenty of stray pages sold in similar fashion,
usually illustrations, and that, if the book whence they came was
incomplete, it was perhaps presumed better to salvage the salvageable; but
that it also struck me as being a way for a truly execrable person to
dispose of a "hot" book in more or less untraceable fashion.

Any thoughts on the matter?  IS it a legitimate thing to do if a book is
incomplete, and are degrees of incompleteness applicable?  How common is
this sort of excerpting?  How does one assign value -- proportionate to the
book whence it was taken?  And what are the odds that such pages or
illustrations come from stolen books thus dispersed?

Mario Rups
<MRUPS@BROOK.BITNET>