I Dive for Treasure Lt. Harry Reissman

[pearldiver]

Copyright 1942. There is a letter attached inside the cover to Jim Lockwood and signed by Harry. He is asking Jim for UW photos for his books.
1. Who is Harry?
2. No dust jacket and did it have one?
3. Is this book very rare?

It mainly has hard hat photos in this book? Any ideas, and did you know him?

[21]

1. The spelling of the name is R I E S E B E R G --RIESEBERG...Certainly also a difficult name for me to spell.

Harry was a famous treasure diver/author of the 1920 and 1930s. I do not know where he obtained the title Lt. Perhaps USN or perhaps self titled. His books are well written full of suspense and excitement. Well worth reading.

This book "I dive for treasure" is about a recovery of treasure from 16th century treasure ships sunk off Mexico.

I have two editions:

1) Robert Mc Bride & Company, 1942, enscribed in very lovely flowing hand writting to Peggy and Newell on 6-3-45, no dust Jacket. good pictures of HUGE octopus...I do not know if it had a DJ..might try Peter at Ocean Enterprises

2) Dodd Mead & Company, 1942, tenth printing, January 1953--has a very good mint dust jacket. The DJ is painting of a walking helmet diver with a light which is shinning on coral--Also good pictures of octopus guarding treasue with in the covers of the book.

I suspect that the octopus pictures were staged but how?
Both books are different sizes and have diffeerent pictures.

I do not know why both editions were published the same year by differnt companies.

There was once a saying in the Bibliophile circles that some one had seen a very rare copy of a Rieseberg-- It was NOT signed! He apparently signed and inscribed a number of copies, possibly while on a lecture tour or had a lot of friends!

I would think the letter would be a valuable addition to the book. I would suggest that you take steps to preserve the letter inside the book via a acid free clear plastic envelope of some sorts

They were once a common reasonable priced book --signed or not--today they are becoming increasingly rare and of course the price is also increasing expodentially.

Hope this helps!

21

[pearldiver]

Thanks a million for the info. The letter is glued to the inside of the cover, so I'll try and figure out a way to preserve it while inside the book. Probably by Jim Lockwood glued it in there. I saw the octopus photo and laughed. It looked like it was made out of rubber. I"ll keep my eyes open for more letters and such.