Turning to Bibles for Divine Returns

By Colleen DeBaise, Dow Jones Newswires

More people are turning to the Bible as a safe refuge from a struggling stock market and rising inflation, pouring large sums of cash into rare 1611 King James Bibles, centuries-old Matthew-Tyndale Bible leaves, Hebrew scrolls, prayer books and other ancient liturgical texts.

At Sotheby's Western Manuscripts sale in London in June, a three-volume, 13th century Bible in Latin with prologues attributed to Saint Jerome sold for $1.8 million, while an 11th century Bible sold for $164,081, well above the estimate.

Rare biblical work "is like California coastline real estate -- there's a finite quantity of it," says John L. Jeffcoat, Greatsite's owner, who estimates that the value of most rare Bibles appreciates by 15 percent each year, and first editions sometimes rise 25 percent.

"The biggest concern could be the hassle of protecting it," said Mark Ferris, an Old Saybrook, Conn., financial planner. "If you really had a Gutenberg Bible -- could you keep it in your house on a stand?"

But as collectibles go, some people swear on the Bible for its steady and stable returns. "There is probably nothing out there that has done better as an investment than rare Bibles," said Tom Cloud, founder of Turamali Inc., a Duluth, Ga., tangible-asset investment manager.

A popular investment -- the rare 1611 King James Bible -- sold five years ago for $50,000. Now, the same Bible would sell for between $250,000 and $400,000, according to Cloud. Meanwhile, pages from an original Gutenberg Bible are selling for $100,000 to $150,000 a page, almost double what they sold for five years ago, he said.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2005/nov/27/turning-to-bibles-for-divine-returns/

Spam Strategy

Eudora allows me to filter messages into separate mailboxes based on various criteria. I can filter a message directly into the trash if I think it is spam. Here's how I deal with spam:

• First, make sure I filter out all the mail I know is good. Emails from my wife, my friends, and mailing lists I'm subscribed to. Don't forget good commercial emails like Ebay or Amazon if you're a customer.

Now, anything that's left is suspect.

• Filter out any message that has an attachment of type PIF, SCR, or ZIP. It's spam. Not only that, it's a virus. Get rid of it. Only my known friends would send me a ZIP file attachment. Those were filtered out in the first step.

• Filter out any message that has a link. Yeah, I know my own messages almost always have a link to my blog. But you've already filtered out my messages as a friend in the first step, right? RIGHT? GOOD! Anyway, the easiest way to find a link is to look for "html" or "http".

• There are words that are more commonly contained in spam emails I receive than in legitimate emails I receive. You might think they would be words like body parts or "Rolex." But no. the two most common words that spell SPAM to me are "free" and "best." Searching for the string "est " will also find variations like "fastest," "strongest," etc.

• Spam emails frequently have characters like []|*@#! in the subject of the email. Get rid of all those. Especially "!"

• Lots of spam comes from certain domains, actually certain countries. I get rid of anything from ZY (???), SE (Sweden), SG (Singapore), PT (Portugal), RU (Russia), NO (Norway), PL (Poland), MX (Mexico), NL (Netherlands), HU (Hungary), IT (Italy), ES (Spain), FR (France), CN (China), DE (Germany), AR (Argentina), and AU (Australia).

You might know people from those countries. I don't, except Susie R from the Netherlands, and I filter her out as a friend in the first step.

Don't forget that if you use a service like Ebay or Yahoo where you might buy things from someone in another country, you won't want to filter out their emails. So you must treat Ebay or Yahoo as a mailing list and filter those emails into the "good" pile.

• Lots of spam comes from certain IP blocks. I filter out anything from 61, 211, 217, and 218. It's all spam.