New Providence Man Is Front-Page News

As a teenager, Geoff Selby decided to start collecting newspapers because he thought it would be interesting in the future.

“When I made the decision to start this collection, I said, ‘You know, I think what I really want to do is try to focus on events that I can determine will either be a famous headline or something that will be fascinating 20 years from now so we can look back on it,’” said Selby, a retired New Providence resident who has lived in the borough for the past 20 years.

But Selby didn’t just collect newspapers from his lifetime. He also scoured through estate and garage sales throughout the years, looking for lost treasures.

“I would simply go up to the person holding the sale and say, ‘Excuse me, by any chance do you have any old newspapers?’ And everyone had a million Kennedy papers, a million this, a million that. Every now and then, I would come across something like this,” said Selby, showing off a Harper’s Weekly from August 15, 1885 that featured etchings of General Grant lying in state.

“People were able to separate with them very easily," he said. "Every now and then, I’d get someone who would say, ‘I’ll give you the whole box for $4.’ But unless the papers are in nearly pristine condition, they really don’t really have significant value.”

Selby’s collection features nearly 200 newspapers, dating from 1865 to present day, that include the day the Statute of Liberty was erected, Oct. 28, 1886; the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; the Nov. 22, 1963 John F. Kennedy Assassination; the Nov. 25, 1963 assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald; President Clinton’s impeachment in Dec., 1998; the Giants Superbowl victories in 1987 and 2008.

Selby said one of the challenging things about having this collection is that the majority of major headlines are unfortunately tragic events.

“Sometimes newspapers don’t get it absolutely right. We’re only human and occasionally they made a mistake and put out the news a little bit too fast,” said Selby, referring to two newspapers from the Kennedy assassination.

One paper, from the New York Journal-American, read “KENNEDY IS SHOT, BADLY WOUNDED,” while another, from by Newark Star-Ledger, read “KENNEDY DEAD — Johnson Sworn In On Plane.”

“I remember that I saw it and I came right out of my shoes because I knew Kennedy was already dead,” Selby explained,” and I said, ‘Well, yeah he was wounded but if they waited like an hour more before they put out the paper…”

Selby said he’s also intrigued by advertisements in some of his newspapers.

“Another really fascinating thing about some of these older papers —right now, we’re talking about 1963—a car ad would be a few thousand dollars,” Selby explained. “The other amusing part is that in 1885, the date of this paper [where General Grant was lying in state], you could send away and get a mail order pistol for $7.50. Some of the ads are just as interesting as the news itself.”

Selby says his four prized pieces are consecutive editions from The New York Herald, dated April 17-20, 1865, chronicling the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Each copy sold for 4 cents. Selby can no longer show off the April 17 copy because it's crumbling.

“That’s the real deal. These newspapers are 147 years old. It’s the story of the whole process as they put together [what happened] because they didn’t have any of the technology or the things we have available to us today so a lot of the things that they did was based on presumption and as they gathered facts, but it was a matter of what I would call hardcore reporting and newsgathering — literally — because it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’ll give him a phone call,’” Selby said.

“Monday’s copy says, ‘Our Grief.’ But then they, with the top left lead column, it was ‘Our Grief,’ ‘Mourning,’ ‘Sadness,’ and ‘The Rites.’ It took them that many days just to figure out how they were going to conduct the funeral services for Lincoln because they didn’t have it set up, it wasn’t expected, so they needed time to get all of that stuff together.”

Selby said there were a few lost years where he was unable to maintain the collection.

“I was deployed twice to tours in Vietnam and I was out of the country. During those years, I couldn’t do too much with the collection. I was in the Navy, [stationed on the U.S.S. Dynamic], and navigated the minesweeper for 14 months,” Selby said.

Selby said his parents didn’t know he was even collecting newspapers, and he put the papers in his collection in a desk drawer while he was gone.

And while Selby said he picked up his collection as soon as he returned, he never added newspapers from Vietnam to his collection.

“I don’t believe I have them but I remember seeing some papers that were published during the time I was [in Vietnam] and to me, they were in conflict with what was going on there as opposed to what was being reported here,” he said.

Selby, who is well known in New Providence, said not many people know of his extensive newspaper collection and he doesn’t often have an opportunity to share it with others.

“They are delicate pieces. I’ve had them on display at various high schools throughout Morris County, Randolph in particular, but for the most part I need to protect them and keep them away from light,” Selby explained. “They can’t really be handled a whole heck of a lot and it’s very challenging to have them on display and then have someone come up and go ‘oh, look! Cool’ and then rip it. No one means to do that but some people are a little bit more hard handed than others.”

Selby said he keeps his collection in black bags in boxes to protect them from the elements, but will share them from time to time.

“They’re not on display in my home so if I have the opportunity to share them pertaining to a specific event or discussion, then I’ll bring in something that may be of interest, like the New York Giants [winning the SuperBowl],” Selby said. “I’ll try to think back and every now and then, I blow it because I’ll think, ‘Oh, I’ve got that paper!’ Then, I’ll go home and look for it, and go, ‘Oh, no. I was thinking of something else.’”

When significant events do occur, such as the New York Giants winning the SuperBowl again, Selby said he does buy at least one newspaper to add to his collection.

“I don’t buy a whole bunch,” he explained. “I’ve done that a few times, but I also have the Rangers, the Yankees, I don’t recall whether I have the Devils, but the sporting events are cool and sports events are particularly fun because they’re positive events, they’re not Oklahoma City getting blown up or Lincoln being assassinated.”

While Selby says he doesn’t know whom he’ll leave his collection to, he said he’ll continue to build his collection as major events occur and as he finds any other hidden treasures.