Otto H. F. Vollbehr: Purchase of the Vollbehr Collection of Incunabula by the Library of Congress, 1930

RLIN ID No.
NYGG01-A21

Title
Vollbehr collection of incunabula : information related to its purchase by the Library of Congress, 1930.

Physical Description
1 box (.25 linear ft.)

Historical/Biographical Note
Otto Heinrich Friedrich Vollbehr, an antiquarian bookseller from Berlin, offered his collection of 3,000 titles of books printed before 1500 to the Library of Congress for the sum of $1,500,000. The collection included books on subjects such as law, medicine, chess, cookery, travel, philosophy and theology as well as editions of classical and Italian authors such as Vergil, Dante and Petrarch. Vollbehr had previously given the library a collection of 11,000 printers’ and publishers’ marks and a collection of 20,000 wood engravings. Congressman Ross A. Collins of Mississippi sponsored the necessary legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives and worked for its passage. The Library of Congress purchased the Vollbehr collection in June 1930.

Scope and Contents Note
Clippings, form letters from Congressman Ross A. Collins, copies of the Congressional Register, and catalogs of loan exhibitions mounted at the Library of Congress prior to the purchase of the Vollbehr collection.

General Note
Grolier Club has the following Library of Congress exhibition catalog: Exhibition of Books Printed During the XVth Century…Selected from the Vollbehr Collection (1930).

General Note
Title devised by cataloger.

Names
Collins, Ross A.
Vollbehr, Otto H. F. (Otto Heinrich Friedrich), 1869- . Library.

Subjects
Incunabula. Collectors and collecting. Germany.
Incunabula. Collectors and collecting. United States.
United States. Library of Congress. Collections.

Location
Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022-1098.