My repository of really old Actuarial books

@SpaceLobster knows well just how old some of the books I have are.

Some of the items he sold me are from pre-1900, and they are definitely in the public domain in the U.S.

I’ve also picked up stuff from retired actuaries… and one guy, it’s from his dad’s storage, his dad having been an actuary, who had died decades ago. This stuff is extremely old and falling apart.

If nothing else, I’m going to digitize it for my personal collection.

Lol,never shoulda done that.
The fraud book is awesome. Duke something or other leaves the castle every day and goes to a rented room in town to deliberately smoke himself to death.

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I just got notified, the scanner got relisted for 200 bucks again. No thanks lol, somethings fishy.

I hate when they do that crap.

The scanner I bought is now in Illinois at some distribution center. SHould be here any year now.

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at least it’s not on a boat from China

supposedly

Very exciting day today at the post office - like 8 books came in!
My scanner OTOH was last seen in Illinois about a week ago.

Got another four books in today! Its like christmas.
Also got another update on my scanner. Its in transit, no location given. Thanks!

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More books. Again, just like christmas except I paid for stuff. So, I guess still just like christmas.
Still waiting on my scanner. Once it’s here, gonna get going on the scanning stat.

I think I’m up to about 60-80 books now. Any remaining books that suit that are for sale are either not quite what I want (I want books with data), or they’re priced so high I’m gonna have to get permission to buy them. I already had last week a convo about ‘what’s this $1000 charge on the cc?’. Me: Oh, it’s work stuff! lol, no I didn’t say that, my spouse know’s what’s up.

Even more books including experience data from 100 years ago for some county in the UK lol.
The packaging is always cool. Book vendors are always mom and pop shops so it’s like a box of chocolates. Here’s today’s wrapping.

Someone did the puzzle? That’s not cricket!

I got another book in today. the description was talking about important people in the life insurance industry. The book actually is a sales book, for life insurance salespeople lol. Anyway…That’s 2 dozen books that have come in recently, and there’s still a few outstanding. Curiously, some of the books from the UK get here faster than books from the US.

My scanner which disappeared from tracking at a facility in Illinois a few weeks ago just got resurrected. It’s reappeared in the system, has cleared through Canadian customs and was last seen in Toronto two days ago. It should’ve been here yesterday with any sane delivery method, but hopefully it arrives this week.

1 month to receive a scanner in Canada shipped from the US?

Geez. Are you really rural or was this 2nd class freight.

They used ebays international shipping. It appears they don’t know what they’re doing, but it’s probably cheap.

Guess what came in today.

  • My book scanner.
  • My book scanner…
  • MY FREAKIN’ BOOK SCANNER BOOOOIS!!!

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So homework and work be damned. I set the scanner up and fiddled with it til I got it somewhat figured out. So far I’m impressed. Maybe not quite as fast as I’d hoped, but, pretty fast. And I expect I’ll be able to get things running a lot faster once I actually have the scanner set up not in a corner of the desk.

I grabbed 2 pages from two different books. Below are the results. The software removed my thumbs holding the edges of the pages down, it flattened the pages which is very impressive, and ocr’ed - so the pdf is actually searchable. Noice.

fourpages.pdf (174.6 KB)

New book scanner setup. I had to set up a different machine that has windows. Not my preference but I need windows for my home security system so it can serve double duty.

First two books are scanned. Many bookshelves to go.
It’s OCR’ing a book of life tables right now, it’s taking an awful long time. The OCR software must be dying with all the numbers in rows. It’s a pretty dense book.

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Somebody set me up the gofundme beg, because my spouse sure ain’t letting me buy this:

I covet this book, that’s for darn sure.

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It does say “or best offer…”