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Bluffing Texas style : the arsons,…
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Bluffing Texas style : the arsons, forgeries, and high stakes poker capers of rare book dealer Johnny Jenkins (2020 original; edició 2020)

de Michael Vinson

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In 1989 a woman fishing in Texas on a quiet stretch of the Colorado River snagged a body. Her "catch" was the corpse of Johnny Jenkins, shot in the head. His death was as dramatic as the rare book dealer's life, which read, as the Austin American-Statesman declared, "like a bestseller." In 1975 Jenkins had staged the largest rare book coup of the twentieth century--the purchase, for more than two million dollars, of the legendary Eberstadt inventory of rare Americana, a feat noted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His undercover work for the FBI, recovering rare books stolen by mafia figures, had also earned him headlines coast to coast, as had his exploits as "Austin Squatty," playing high stakes poker in Las Vegas. But beneath such public triumphs lay darker secrets. At the time of his death, Jenkins was about to be indicted by the ATF for the arson of his rare books, warehouse, and offices. Another investigation implicated Jenkins in forgeries of historical documents, including the Texas Declaration of Independence. Rumors of million-dollar gambling debts at mob-connected casinos circulated, along with the rumblings of irate mafia figures he'd fingered and eccentric Texas collectors he'd cheated. Had he been murdered? Or was his death a suicide, staged to look like a murder? How Jenkins, a onetime president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, came to such an unseemly end is one of the mysteries Michael Vinson pursues in this spirited account of a tragic American life. Entrepreneur, con man, connoisseur, forger, and self-made hero, Jenkins was a Texan who knew how to bluff but not when to fold.  … (més)
Membre:Fjumonvi
Títol:Bluffing Texas style : the arsons, forgeries, and high stakes poker capers of rare book dealer Johnny Jenkins
Autors:Michael Vinson
Informació:Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, [2020]
Col·leccions:La teva biblioteca, Read in 2020
Valoració:
Etiquetes:Forgery, Booksellers, True crime

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Bluffing Texas Style: The Arsons, Forgeries, and High-Stakes Poker Capers of Rare Book Dealer Johnny Jenkins de Michael Vinson (2020)

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I am interested in rare books and in Texas history; I collect the former and teach the latter. I have some books printed by Jenkins, including the inestimably important Basic Texas Books, important as a reference bibliography for teaching and writing Texas history, and important as a reference bibliography for book collectors. The story of Jenkins shady dealings and his mysterious demise has already been handled ably, in short form, in the Texas Monthly magazine. Here, rare book dealer Michael Vinson digs deep in the archives, including Jenkins's own, and interviews all the living major characters who worked with, against, and alongside Jenkins to present an interesting, engaging biography of a character. My only quibbles is that I would like more precise, technical, and illustrated evidence of the forgeries he sold (for that, see the Texas Monthly and a book called TexFake; I wish there were more photographs overall; and I wish there was a bibliography of the works Jenkins wrote and Jenkins published (along, perhaps, with a list of things he is suspected of stealing or forged). But, overall, it's a neat book. Pages 29-32, offering proof that the twentysomething Jenkins was stealing things from the Texas State Archives already is a gut-punch, a shameful travesty, and a fine bit of archival work and writing on Vinson's part. ( )
  tuckerresearch | Dec 13, 2023 |
As excellent a biography of Johnny Jenkins as we're likely to get, and much credit to Michael Vinson for writing it while many who knew Jenkins were still here to add their first-hand accounts. The third chapter, about Jenkins' role in the Union College Audubon thefts, hits home hard, as Union is my alma mater and I had the great privilege of spending a lot of time with those birds in Special Collections there. A highly readable and very well researched account of this biblio-character. ( )
  JBD1 | Oct 25, 2020 |
I am a rare book librarian, and I found this a fascinating account of Johnny Jenkins, about whom I had heard rumors and a few stories from members of the generation right before me. The book is meticulously researched and well written- the author has clearly dug deep into archives, spoken to contemporaries, and even collected his own materials about this colorful character. He's right that this story has a strong Texas flavor, in which a good old boy with some brains and a charismatic personality was able to bluff his way into million dollar deals and garner international publicity while pulling off schemes on anyone who wasn't paying close enough attention. I learned quite a bit that is helpful to my trade about older forgery techniques as well as the back stories of a number of important book dealers (Wm. Reese and H.P. Kraus), institutions (like the Harry Ransom Center at UT-Austin), and Texas printing history. There are also stories about a number of wealthy oil men who took up collecting Texana who were often a little too trusting of Jenkins. But the whole thing is very well-documented, so I don't feel that it is mere gossip. Recommended for those in the field, and those interested in recent and distant Texas history. ( )
  belgrade18 | Aug 31, 2020 |
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In 1989 a woman fishing in Texas on a quiet stretch of the Colorado River snagged a body. Her "catch" was the corpse of Johnny Jenkins, shot in the head. His death was as dramatic as the rare book dealer's life, which read, as the Austin American-Statesman declared, "like a bestseller." In 1975 Jenkins had staged the largest rare book coup of the twentieth century--the purchase, for more than two million dollars, of the legendary Eberstadt inventory of rare Americana, a feat noted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His undercover work for the FBI, recovering rare books stolen by mafia figures, had also earned him headlines coast to coast, as had his exploits as "Austin Squatty," playing high stakes poker in Las Vegas. But beneath such public triumphs lay darker secrets. At the time of his death, Jenkins was about to be indicted by the ATF for the arson of his rare books, warehouse, and offices. Another investigation implicated Jenkins in forgeries of historical documents, including the Texas Declaration of Independence. Rumors of million-dollar gambling debts at mob-connected casinos circulated, along with the rumblings of irate mafia figures he'd fingered and eccentric Texas collectors he'd cheated. Had he been murdered? Or was his death a suicide, staged to look like a murder? How Jenkins, a onetime president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, came to such an unseemly end is one of the mysteries Michael Vinson pursues in this spirited account of a tragic American life. Entrepreneur, con man, connoisseur, forger, and self-made hero, Jenkins was a Texan who knew how to bluff but not when to fold.  

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