Old, older, oldest

We were invited to join a group viewing some of the 'Special Collection" at the Brigham Young University library last night. What an experience! We were shown a few items taken from the collection and spoken to about them by a curator named Russ who know an amazing amount of stuff! We saw a handwritten page of the Book of Mormon from the original translation days written out in Oliver's hand, and something in Parley Pratt's hand. Parley writes smaller. We saw Hyrum's missionary journal, the cover of which was made from an old oilcloth tablecloth of the Smith's and of course saw Hyrum's writing inside. We saw one of the original copies of the Book of Mormon - a copy that had been given to an early investigator who had not joined the church but who's decendant just recently did. We saw Emma's original hymnal, tiny little thing with no music, just words. We saw some of the pages of the 'Book of Commandments" that those two young girls saved when the presses were being destroyed, and a book make from another of the pages. I had never understood before, but the way they were printed, an entire book was printed on one large sheet of paper, then that sheet was folded and the edges cut to form a small book. So each page that they saved was an entire copy of the book. I had always worried about any pages that were lost.
Then we got to see some books that were hand copied and decorated in the 14th century by monks. There was a history book but most were hand copied bibles. We got to compare a page that was hand lettered and decorated with the same page done on the Gutenberg printing press. It was a page from a Gutenberg bible and cost $65000. A whole bible would go for 4 1/2 million dollars. The hand lettering was almost perfect but it would take 11 years to do a bible! The world sure needed that press. Do you know that the only Gutenberg press still working is in Provo, Utah? We saw some hand cut movable type. We saw some books with beautiful, intricate paintings on the foredge. What an art form that would be, especially since one of them had one painting when you held the book one direction, and when you turned it over the other direction there was a different painting.
We saw actual papyrus and books made on skin or hide. Where there was a hole in the hide (would you call it leather?) they just wrote around it, since it was far too dear (rare, expensive or hard to obtain) to replace. We saw ancient writing on a turtle shell. The oldest thing we saw was a clay tablet from 2055 bc. It was a beer merchant's record of goods and was dated by whoever wrote it. (his name was there too, but I've forgotten it.)
We saw some of Jimmy Stewart's collection, and an original hand written page of the musical score from 'Gone With The Wind' and a real Oscar that was given to the Library. I think the Oscar was from 'Camelot'.
Most of these things were donated to the library, and they are kept in special climate controlled vaults and handled with gloves. However, when I guessed that the first foreign language translation of the Book of Mormon was to Danish, and the second to German, I got to carry the German copy around to show everyone. He let various people in the audience carry a number of things, although the most important were carried by his assistant, the professor who got us the invitation and himself. Particularly those things that on the market would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was far better than going to a museum since we got to hear where things came from and how the library got them and ask all the questions we wanted. Great time for people interested in history.