Retired Meramec Community College Professor Subject of a "Man Hunt" by Greater St. Louis Book Fair Volunteers

March 11, 2010

Detective novels are often donated to the Greater St. Louis Book Fair. But it was a philosophy book and what was found within its pages that turned Book Fair volunteers into amateur sleuths.

"Book Fair volunteers routinely check every donated volume at least three times during our sorting process," said this year's Greater St. Louis Book Fair co-chair Linda Givens. "The usual found items are bookmarks made up of everything from concert ticket stubs, coupons, and most often, folded pieces of clean toilet paper."

Recently, a volunteer discovered a very different type of placeholder -- a stack of U.S. and foreign currency and dozens of photo negatives from the 1940s. The cash included 23 U.S. $1.00 bills and a dozen $2.00 bills in mint condition. Colorful, foreign currency created a virtual travelogue of paper bills from India, Japan, Egypt, Belgium, Great Britain and Canada.

"Our big break in the case came when we noticed two key clues: a bank deposit slip and an envelope that had been postmarked from the United Kingdom and mailed to an individual in Webster Groves," said Marilyn Brown, the other co-chair of the 2010 Book Fair. These leads provided a family name and what turned out to be an old address.

Further investigation, plus the power of Google, solved the ownership mystery.

The book, money and photos belonged to Harry Machin of Crestwood. Harry and his wife Bev had donated boxes of books and record albums to Book Fair. One of the boxes contained the treasure-laden volume.

The co-chairs met with the Machins and returned the long-forgotten currency and photo negatives. Harry was delighted as both the images on negatives and the foreign currency brought back memories. The monies were collected as souvenirs during his years in the U.S. Navy.

An amateur magician, Harry also chuckled about the cache of $2.00 bills, a staple prop for many magic tricks.

Harry taught philosophy and was one of the original instructors at Meramec Community College. He worked there for 35 years.

"We've shopped at Book Fair many times and have donated books," said Harry Machin. "But we never expected to have one of our donations returned!" And yes, Harry kept the returned book.

This year's Greater St. Louis Book Fair may have one less philosophy book available, but still offers hundreds of thousands of other items for purchase, including movies, music and sheet music, posters and items of ephemera in 150 categories. This year's Book Fair also features more than 600 vintage, classic comic books that are prized by collectors.