The Bulgarian 'Crab with the Golden Claws' that Casterman tried to erase — and the grandfather who refused to be erased - а rare book and rare people.
I didn't find this book because I'm a collector. I found it because I needed money, and I remembered my grandfather had an old Tintin in the cupboard. That's the honest, ugly truth. But looking for a price led me back to his story — and I realized the book and the man survived the same way.
The comic:
In 1993, a small Sofia publisher called "Renaissance" got the rights to print the first Tintin in Bulgarian. They chose The Crab with the Golden Claws, translated by Venelin Proykov. Print run was only about 1,000-1,200 copies, on cheap Bulgarian offset paper.
In early 1994, Casterman sent an inspector. The report was brutal: colors misaligned by 1-2mm, pages glued so badly the covers fell off, paper that yellowed in months. They cancelled the contract immediately and ordered every unsold copy destroyed. Nearly 700 books were pulped. Only the 300-400 copies already sold in bookstores survived. The second book — The Secret of the Unicorn — was printed but never properly distributed.
In Bulgaria collectors call it "the banned Crab." Today it sells for $400-$1,100 if you can find one.
[my photos: front, back with 30 leva price, inside]
The man who bought it:
My grandfather was the reason it survived in our house.
He was born poor, lost his mother at 5. At 12 he won a full scholarship to the French College of Saint Augustine in Plovdiv (run by the Augustinian order), then studied in Grenoble before WWII. He came back to communist Bulgaria.
From 1965-1988 he taught at the French High School in Sofia and wrote French textbooks. At our kitchen table he tutored hundreds of kids for university — I watched him when I was 6, 7, 10, 12. Some of those students are public figures now.
Because he was French-educated and a practicing Catholic, the regime tried to erase him slowly. He was called in 13 times and offered Communist Party membership. He refused 13 times. For that he was professionally blocked his whole life, denied promotion, and even internally exiled from Sofia for a while. He lost his first child at age six to illness. He lived through all of it and stayed "just a teacher."
He was never bitter. When I worked as a waiter years later, my English teacher asked me, "Are you that Vartogorov's grandson?" The French Embassy published a tribute to him. He was that respected.
Our family godfather — a Banat Bulgarian Catholic — did 12 years in the Belene labor camp for openly practicing his faith. He came out, never had children, and at age 12 gave me a 50 Cent CD and laughed at our Sunday lunches. No anger. Ever.
My grandfather lived to see 1989. He didn't celebrate "democracy." He said: "They just changed their documents overnight, from red to blue. You don't become free in one night." He was right.
The parallel:
In 1992, this man — who had spent his life refusing to be pulped by a system — walked into a bookstore and bought a book that a year later would be ordered pulped by its own publisher.
Both were judged "not good enough" by the powerful. Both were supposed to disappear. Both didn't.
Casterman tried to erase 700 copies for bad paper. The Party tried to erase a French Catholic teacher for bad ideology. About 300 copies survived in people's homes. One teacher survived in his kitchen, teaching kids French.
I was going to sell his copy because I'm a gambler and I've hit a low point. I'm the opposite of him in almost every way, and I'm ashamed of that. But because he didn't quit after 13 refusals, and because our godfather didn't quit after 12 years in a camp, I don't get to quit either.
So I'm not selling it. I'm sharing it here first.
My question for you collectors: have you ever owned a book that survived not because it was rare, but because someone refused to let it die? Does anyone here actually have this 1993 Bulgarian Crab?
Thanks for reading. He would have loved this group.
— Georgi, Sofia
Posted Jun 7, 2026, 4:29 AM UTC