that need to possess...

Carl Sandburg, renowned Lincoln collector and Pulitzer Prize winner (for his biography of Lincoln), recalls a tale that so aptly describes the near-pathological nature of some aspects of collecting:

"...[Oliver] Barrett saw a manuscript in the handwriting of Robert Burns--the verses of "Auld Lang Syne"--he said 'I want this "Auld Lang Syne,"' [Charles] Gunther replied, 'I know how you feel. I went over to England and I got it and I had to pay a lot of money.'
Barrett: 'I want it now. You know how it feels to have it, and I don't know how it feels.'
Gunther: 'I will sell you this "Auld Lang Syne" and you write out the receipt and put in the receipt that any time I want it, I can buy it back at the same price.'
Barrett took it home. A week later Gunther was on the phone and saying: 'Bring back the "Auld Lang Syne." You know, I haven't been able to sleep. I hear the waves of Lake Michigan pounding at night and I think about it. I walk down Michigan Avenue thinking about it, and now it is gone and I am not going to last many years. Let me have it back.'

Basbanes was right...a gentle madness, indeed.