That is literally what this article is about.

streetfighter64 · 2026-07-27T14:35:27 1785162927

The "article" in question is a tweet. The "rare botanical text" is just an example the author of the tweet made up in order to generate sympathy.

malfist · 2026-07-27T14:41:42 1785163302

The tweet is about a 404 Media article about the practice. It's linked elsewhere here.

dwedge · 2026-07-27T16:05:12 1785168312

Does the 404media article mention that rare botanical book? I saw an excerpt here elsewhere of their examples and it wasn't in that list.

Also I had a family member work in libraries. They got rid of books for very small prices based on how many people checked them out. Not how easy they were to replace. One example was a 100 year old gold leafed book they sold for £5 to someone who removed every page to sell separately.

streetfighter64 · 2026-07-30T09:07:25 1785402445

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49073042

> an 18th century botanical text that there's only 2 copies of in existence.

> books that had little in common, except for the fact that they all had ISBNs. This seller also sells rare books that do not have ISBNs, and none of those were part of the bulk purchases

Wow, that's impressive they had ISBNs in the 18th century.