"my-wings" wrote in message
...


Since missing material is generally considered worse than defaced
material, it's unlikely that any knowledgeable person would actually
remove a piece of a page unless they wanted to conceal former ownership.
In fact, former ownership for a book of this age would generally be
considered a valuable piece of provenance.

The several times I've run across a somewhat collectible book with part or
all of the title page missing my assumption was that some numbskull had
removed the author's "autograph." I doubt that's the case here, I'm just
saying.