by KYW's Dr. Marciene Mattleman
Whether high school or college, graduation times are usually bittersweet occasions. Students sweat what to write in their year books, although they’re hardly ever opened afterward.
However, if someone in your class becomes famous, that memento can turn out to be valuable.
For instance, the 1895 issue of “Cork and Curls” from the University of Virginia sold for $300 because it contained a previously unsold poem by Edgar Allan Poe.
The Sequoian, from John Muir Technical High School, with its star baseball legend Jackie Robinson, sold for $650.
The Harvard freshman Red Book brought $900, with its youthful pictures of President John F. Kennedy, folk singer Pete Seeger and Broadway lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.
The most expensive, the 1921 Ole Miss Yearbook, made $4500 for the dealer, because it contained the poem “Nocturne” and some drawings by William Faulkner, who had just returned to the University of Mississippi after World War I.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed suggests that this year’s graduates hang on to their yearbooks in case a classmate becomes famous.
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