What a bad joke! I have been looking for this title for some time. It is either unavailable or very expensive to get second hand. When I checked again a while ago, I noticed that the University of Michigan has a photographic reprint available. Excited I ordered the book from Amazon even though the book is not really cheap. When I received the book and opened it, my eye immediately fell on the words “Band II” on the title page… Neither the cover, nor the information on Amazon says that this is only the second volume, so my guess was that this book contained both volumes together. Now I have a book that is one-third index and bibliography, so I miss about two-thirds of this work. Looking further at Amazon to see if I missed something I cannot find the reprint of volume one of Michigan University. What could be the reason to republish half a book? After a bit more of searching I found volume one available from another publisher, again more expensive, but of course I ordered a copy. What is funny, by the way, is that this book is scanned by Google Books and available as printing on demand. With such a structure more old books might become available for personal libraries. I like that development.
And you wondered what this book is all about? As the title says, this work is about ancient laws of Germanic peoples, not the texts themselves, but Grimm made a relatively readable text of it all.
1899/2010 University of Michigan, isbn not available, asin: B0036MDAF6
So here is the (weird) deal. The first volume of Grimm’s Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer is also available as printing on demand, but from another publisher that on their turn do not seem to have volume 2 in their catalogue. The good news is that this volume 1 and volume 2 are scans of the same printing, but somehow Nabu Press sells it in a larger book than the Michigan University… At least I have the work complete (for about $ 90,-…), but if you ask me, you better look for a complete set of two of the old printing or the 1955 reprint.