that makes at least 5 copies of this that he has...
It's funny, because I don't think anyone would look at a collection with 4 or 5 of everything and say, "Wow, what a great collection." Multiples don't have anything to do with a great collection. You know, unless you have multiple Gutenberg's or something.
This guy is just an accumulator (he will end up like the crazy old women in the movie
Grey Gardens, with raccoons eating all his books). That, or he has plans to one day open the Bukowski WalMart that
hank solo suggested.
He reminds me of something I read in
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (recommended by someone here...
nymark?). There was an extremely rich guy who for years bought up every large collection that came up for auction. Would simply outbid everyone regardless of whether he paid 10 times more than the book's worth. He just had to
win. It got to the point where people wouldn't even go to auctions if they knew his rep would be there. These are
rare rare books we're talking about, and this character would drop millions of dollars in a day. And no one knew who he was. Ha.
That's a really great book, by the way.