Olympic Games & Sport History Library
The Abrams Collection

$ 450,000

16th century image from De Arte Gymnastica....

This library is for sale as a single, comprehensive research collection.

The Abrams collection is a comprehensive research library on the Olympic Games and History of Sport. Starting in 1968 Abrams began collecting books on the sport of wrestling after he joined the wrestling team at Penn State University. As a physical education major with an interest in history he collected books, magazines and journals in his field, with a special interest in the history of the sport of wrestling. While researching the History of the US Olympic Wrestling Team for a sport history course term paper he found that almost all the old magazines in the University library (Pattee Library) had been vandalized in some way -- with articles or pictures cut out. Whole sections of magazines from the 1890's were missing. He took took each to the circulation desk and requested photocopies through inter-library loan. Because the number of vandalized items was so great the University Library eventually held an exhibit in glass display cases showing the nature of the vandalism and the need for greater security within the collections. By graduation time in 1971 Abrams had developed a small but notable collection of books and old magazines on the history of sport and wrestling. Most items came from the great old bookstores in Philadelphia, where he grew up and had graduated from high school. But the booktrade was changing in the late 1960's and 1970's and almost every great bookstore went out of business before the end of the decade. Abrams began to search widely for books to add to his collection. In 1972 Abrams tried out for the US Olympic Wrestling team and took a second place at the preliminary trials earning an invitation to the final selection of the team. But as a poor college graduate in search of a job, a choice had to be made -- go to the final selection tournament or go to Munich to see the Olympic Games. Abrams knew who would be at the final selection and that included the great Don Beam who won the silver medal at Mexico City in the previous Games. The idea of traveling to Europe was very appealing and so Abrams and his college roommate/teammate Dick Keefe went off to see the Olympic Games on a budget of $5-$10 per day. Backpacking through Italy, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, England, France, Spain and Switzerland for 6 weeks, they witnessed the Olympic Games at Munich and returned to the USA the day before the Israeli team was attacked and eventually murdered. During this extended trip Abrams had been exposed to European bookstores, flea markets and posters -- especially the Olympic posters in Munich -- which he could not afford to buy. Returning from Munich Abrams had one day to rest before driving to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. As a Physical Education teacher he went to Southeast Missouri State University on a graduate assistantship to teach and serve as assistant wrestling coach. He specialized in history of sport and turned his earlier project on the history of wrestling into his master's degree thesis. Entitled The History of the United States Olympic Wrestling Team From 1896 to 1920, Abrams found that the literature on the Olympic Games had lots of the wrestling material he wanted to collect. Living in Missouri and researching the early period of the Olympic Games led to a keen interest in the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis. This in turn led to collecting Olympic books and exposition material because the 1904 Olympic Games were part of a very large world's fair. The scope of the collection was beginning to expand. During the 1970's the collection grew slowly as Abrams purchased books from many dealers via mail catalogs. In 1977 Abrams began his Ph.D. program at Penn State where he was also an Instructor. Specializing in History of Sport he started his doctoral dissertation entitled: the History of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, It's Department of Physical Culture and the Olympic Games of 1904. In 1979 Abrams started his own book business, HARVEY ABRAMS-BOOKS, as an antiquarian mail-order business specializing in Olympic Games and History of Sport. Small catalogs were produced and given to friends and colleagues to sell duplicates from his own collection and providing special orders for others. The collection grew very quickly after the business was created. Material in other languages was added. Professional journals worldwide were added. In 1982 Abrams completed his doctoral program and moved to West Berlin, Germany to teach at the John F Kennedy School. While living in Europe for five years he added enormous quantities of material to his collection, and expanded from books to posters and other collectables and memorabilia. Eventually he purchased the entire inventory of posters from the Munich Olympic poster vendor and in 1990 acquired the inventory of the American vendor. The collection development of 1936 Olympic material in both English and German languages was particularly strong, with significant collections in Swedish and Finnish added. Abrams returned to the USA in 1987. Larger catalogs were developed over the next ten years with the largest catalog being issued in 1996 -- 144 pages and over 1700 lots. But family issues and health problems intervened -- divorce, custody battles and a crippling hip injury left Abrams unable to keep the pace of issuing catalogs. The development of the internet changed the face of the book trade, publishers went out of business or merged and bookstores by the thousands closed. The entire book and publishing industry changed within a short time and the future is still uncertain. High quality academic work, which is usually printed by small presses in small runs of under 500 copies, has significantly decreased. Abrams began to consider selling the collection in 1996 and in order to keep it in the USA created the IISOH, a non-profit corporation, in 2001. But the non-profit corporation was going public on September 11 when the World Trade Center was destroyed and the project was very slow to get off the ground. Efforts to raise a large endowment continue to this day. With failing health it has become more timely to proceed with a sale of the entire collection for the benefit of the Abrams family. The collection contains approximately 6,000 individual items on a large number of subjects which are described below. A catalog was in preparation but could not be timely completed, so a list is not available at this time. Potential buyers may visit to view the collection or see photos that have been taken. As an athlete and historian Abrams has been given a large number of gifts by different organizations including the US, British, Canadian, Greek, Swedish and Finnish Olympic Committees. Most of the material has never been available to the public and is not found on the marketplace. There is an exceptional collection of material on the ancient Olympic Games, 1936 Olympic Games, history of sport in general, wrestling, 1972 Munich, physical education and periodicals. The oldest material dates from the 1550's and almost every single important book in Olympic bibliography is in the collection. Extensive material on every Olympic Games includes official reports, daily programs, guides, results, maps and ephemera. There is a nice poster collection. Periodicals include many Olympic publications from the IOC, USA, German and other Olympic committees such as Olympic Review. Because Abrams concentrated on the 1904 Olympic Games for his dissertation there is an extensive collection of material for the early years of the Olympic Movement. In summary -- the collection is among the two or three largest, most comprehensive, private collections in the world. Potential buyers may view the collection in State College, Pennsylvania upon appointment. There is a fee involved to see the collection. A $500 non-refundable deposit is required to view the collection. Two people may visit and have up to eight (8) hours to see the collection. The fee may be deducted from the final price in case of purchase. The buyer must pay fifty (50%) percent of the purchase price immediately with the balance due upon delivery of the collection. The balance must be guaranteed with a letter of credit in US Dollars placed in a US bank. Shipping will be included in the price. The collection will be boxed and stacked on pallets with shipment via freight in the USA, surface shipment worldwide, fully insured. CONTACT: Mr. Harvey Abrams HARVEY ABRAMS-BOOKS PO Box 732 State College, PA USA 16804