400,000 books destroyed at Victor Kamkin bookstore
Man, this hurts. One of the things I'm doing now is pulling together work for a side project for later this summer, for which I needed some rare Russian books. I knew exactly where to go: Victor Kamkin Books, my old haunt in NYC in law school and, since that store shut down, in Maryland just a short hop from my in-laws.
I knew the Rockville, MD store moved a couple towns over recently after some financial trouble, but I wasn't prepared for the image above: their inventory destroyed, in keeping with the local sheriff's orders, after the store missed rent payments.
400,000 Russian books destroyed, with the remaining 150,000 presumably gone soon afterward. Much of this--assuming the stock remained consistent with what it had been for decades--was rare historic material you'd simply not be able to find anywhere else in the U.S.
Sometimes, sad to say, manuscripts do burn.
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Long time between original post and this comment, but there is some good news - the majority of the books "liberated" from the Kamkin warehouse are available at Wonderbook (see their website - www.wonderbk.com for their retail locations). The REALLY good news is that they often sell the books, used and new, at very good prices. The in-store prices are much cheaper than the on-line prices; I'd recommend heading to the Frederick, MD store for the best selection. Probably a couple of thousand at any given time, and the employees there have told me that there are thousands more than won't fit in the store. The more you buy, the more room you make. Enjoy.