GUEST: I brought a book that was called The History
of Magic.
It was a Christmas gift to me.
A roommate of mine in college, we exchanged Christmas gifts.
I think I gave him a print or a drawing.
I was an art student, and he gave me this.
APPRAISER: Well, apparently you've read the book.
You've kind of hounded it a little bit.
All the edges are worn away.
GUEST: Yeah, I've...it's not the kind of book you
sit down and read cover to cover, but I've looked at it over the years.
APPRAISER: It's also got wonderful illustrations in it.
GUEST: Yeah, it does.
APPRAISER: If you go in, there are actually pieces like
this, which are old illuminated manuscript art.
Old engraving.
Engraving, wood cuts, et cetera, yeah.
GUEST: The subject matter is, you know, mysterious
and interesting.
APPRAISER: I guess you say it's a compilation, which
is true, and it was under the name of Kurt Seligmann, who put it out.
But what interested me, you know, this book, I'm going to cut right to a value here for
you.
This book in this condition is worth about $100.
GUEST: Oh, really.
APPRAISER: However, when you had it at the table and
you were talking to me, in here, I opened the flyleaf and I noticed who your college
roommate was: Jim Morrison of The Doors.
GUEST: That's right.
APPRAISER: So all right, let's pounce on that.
I have all kinds of questions for you, because I'm a Jim Morrison fan.
GUEST: Oh, really?
I met Jim Morrison, I was in a rooming house renting a room--this was in Tallahassee, Florida--and
this other guy lived there and we got to be friends.
We'd walk to school and so forth.
And he was...it was Jim Morrison.
APPRAISER: I see that he's inscribed it as a Christmas
gift, "1963 from Jim Morrison."
And he had been a Florida native, and Jim had bounced out to New Mexico and he ended
up back at Florida State, where you were, and he decided to take a few classes.
He kind of went in in typical Jim Morrison spirit, and I guess that he had a few run-ins.
He was originally in a video that was promoting the college.
GUEST: I remember that.
APPRAISER: Really?
GUEST: Yeah, and that's just a little part of a film
that's promoting Florida State.
It's really very...
it's very dull.
APPRAISER: Right.
So what kind of a student was he?
I'd hate to hear that he was, like, a shy and meek guy.
GUEST: For his age, I'd say he was probably the most...intellectually
deep person and well-read I ever met.
APPRAISER: And he was 19 when you met him?
19, 20?
GUEST: Probably, something like that.
APPRAISER: He gave you the book on the occult.
It's always been assumed that he had an interest in the occult.
GUEST: Yeah, he did.
APPRAISER: In the band, he often took on the name of
the Lizard King.
GUEST: All the band stuff came after I knew him.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: And he was, I would say, interested in the
idea that maybe people that are criminals are really saints and the saints are criminals.
APPRAISER: He was so attractive to the public.
There was a following after his death.
He died young, you know, he has all the components of value.
You know, beauty, early death, intelligent, wild.
That's Jim Morrison to a tee.
So this, what a wonderful early, early view into his life and, you know, his relationship
with you as a young college kid.
The value on this at auction with the occult level, if it weren't that book, I'd put $4,000
to $6,000 on it.
But because it's that book, because it's early in his life, which generally doesn't help,
I would say that the value on it is $8,000 to $10,000 at auction.
GUEST: No kidding.
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: Wow.
I'm surprised at that.
APPRAISER: When we're done here, you want to have a beer?
GUEST: Yeah, we could.
My daughter's here, she'd go along with it.
APPRAISER: We'll take you over and I'd love to hear your
stories.
That'd be so awesome, yeah.
APPRAISER: All right.