• Bonhams, June 16-25: 15th-CENTURY TREATISE ON SYPHILIS. GRÜNPECK. 1496. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: THE NORMAN COPY OF BENIVIENI'S TREATISE ON PATHOLOGY. 1507. $12,000 - $18,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: FRACASTORO. Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus. 1530. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: THE FIRST PUBLISHED WORK ON SKIN DISEASES. MERCURIALIS. De morbis cutaneis... 1572. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: BIDLOO. Anatomia humani corporis... 1685. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: THE NORMAN COPY OF DOUGLASS'S EARLY AMERICAN WORK ON INNOCULATION AND SMALLPOX. 1722. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: LIND'S FIRST TREATISE ON SCURVY. 1753. $15,000 - $20,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: RARE JENNER SIGNED CIRCULAR ON VACCINATION. 1821. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: MOST BEAUTIFUL OF MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. BRIGHT. Reports of Medical Cases... 1827-1831. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE PRESENTATION COPY TO HER MOTHER. 1860. $6,000 - $8,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: LORENZO TRAVER'S MANUSCRIPT JOURNAL OF BURNSIDE'S NORTH CAROLINA EXPEDITION. TRAVER, Lorenzo. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: ONE OF THE EARLIEST PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKS ON DERMATOLOGY. HARDY. Clinique Photographique... 1868. $3,000 - $5,000
  • Dominic Winter AuctioneersJune 18 & 19Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions Dominic Winter AuctioneersJune 18 & 19Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    June 18 & 19
    Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    June 18 & 19
    Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: World. Van Geelkercken (N.), Orbis Terrarum Descriptio Duobis..., circa 1618. £4,000-6,000.
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Moll (Herman). A New Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain..., circa 1715. £2,000-3,000.
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Churchill (Winston S.). The World Crisis, 5 volumes bound in 6, 1st edition, 1923-31. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    June 18 & 19
    Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Darwin (Charles). On the Origin of Species, 2nd edition, 2nd issue, 1860. £1,500-2,000.
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Roberts (David). The Holy Land, 6 volumes in 3, 1st quarto ed, 1855-56. £1,500-2,000.
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Saint-Exupéry (Antoine de, 1900-1944). Pilote de guerre (Flight to Arras), 1942. £10,000-15,000.
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    June 18 & 19
    Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Austen (Jane, 1775-1817). Signature, cut from a letter, no date. £7,000-10,000
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Huxley (Aldous). Brave New World, 1st edition, with wraparound band, 1932. £4,000-6,000
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Tolkien (J. R. R.) The Hobbit, 1st edition, 2nd impression, 1937. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    June 18 & 19
    Printed Books & Maps, Children's & Illustrated Books, Modern First Editions
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Rackham (Arthur, 1867-1939). Princess by the Sea (from Irish Fairy Tales), circa 1920. £4,000-6,000
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: Kelmscott Press. The Story of the Glittering Plain, Walter Crane's copy, 1894. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, June 18-19: King (Jessie Marion, 1875-1949). The Summer House, watercolour. £4,000-6,000
  • Bonhams, June 16-24: KELMSCOTT PRESS. RUSKIN. The Nature of Gothic. 1892. $1,500 - $2,500
    Bonhams, June 16-24: ASHENDENE PRESS. The Wisdom of Jesus. 1932. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: CHARLOTTE BRONTE WRITES AS GOVERNESS. Autograph Letter Signed, 1851. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS. BRONTE, Emily. New York, 1848. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: IAN FLEMING ASSOCIATION COPY. You Only Live Twice. London, 1964. $7,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: DELUXE EDITION WITH ORIGINAL PAINTING. BUKOWSKI, Charles. War All the Time. 1984. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN'S MOST POWERFUL STATEMENT ON THE ATOMIC BOMB. Original Typed Manuscript Signed, "On My Participation in the Atom Bomb Project," 1953. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN ON SCIENCE, WAR AND MORALITY. Autograph Letter Signed, 1949. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. WASHINGTON, George. Engraved document signed, 1786. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: AN EARLY CHINESE-MADE 34-STAR U.S. CONSULAR FLAG. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF LINCOLN WITH HIS SON TAD. 1864. $60,000 - $90,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: MALCOLM X WRITES FROM KENYA. Postcard signed, 1964. $4,000 - $6,000
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    Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
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Rare Book Monthly

Articles - February - 2004 Issue

Search Engines: A Growing Force in Books

Bookfinder is useful but can be better.

Bookfinder is useful but can be better.


Because these search engines don’t search exactly the same sites it’s important to compare the results when they do. This is a better way to understand their performance.

Listing SiteUsedBookSearch BookfinderAddAll
   WFAJGJPAPWFAJGJPAPWFAJGJPAP
Alibris171 3316  3 2 89  3  2
ABE262671566 10067
Biblion6 1 16  1  1 6 1  1
Total4391011 37 109 195 10 10

If you are looking for an inexpensive book hundreds of matches may be irrelevant. On the other hand valuable books are rarely available in large quantities and each search engine does a similarly effective job when the book is rare. With rare books the principal difference is in the sites they search, not the completeness of the searches and no one searches every site.

Both AddAll and UsedBookSearch provide 3 fields to do general searches on their primary screen: Author, Title and Keyword while BookFinder provides the same choices in its advanced search. Bookfinder also provides a “Classic Search Screen” option in its advance search that is a single continuous presentation of search results – a better choice than opening many files. In every case with each search engine, if you find an interesting copy you can go into the listing site and conduct the same search again to confirm a copy’s relative merit.

All the search engines are heavily dependent on ABE because they have something like 50% of all book listings in the world. All the other sites have an unduplicated additional 50%+ divided into a patchwork quilt of listings. Because many of the businesses and individuals who list do so on more than one site (some more than 5) the searches engines find a great many matches that are actually duplicates. To test this we evaluated all the results found when searching for “Life and Confessions of James Gilbert Jenkins: The Murderer of Eighteen Men (searched simply as “James Gilbert Jenkins”), Napa, 1864. Of the 7 copies found Abe had 6. Given that the total matches of the three search engines was 61, ABE look looks very concise and efficient. It is also the fastest.

The sites charge different fees and structure their sales in different ways and you can see this using search engines. Sites such as Alibris, Chapters.Indigo, and BiblioQuest sell the book themselves and pay the bookseller a percentage but most sites simply list the book, receive a listing fee and an occasional transaction fee. As well, sometimes the same book from the same dealer is offered for different prices on different sites. Without looking very hard you will see that there are price differences. With search engines we are still in the “wild west” stage.

Rare Book Monthly

  • FinarteBooks, Autographs & PrintsJune 24 & 25, 2025 FinarteBooks, Autographs & PrintsJune 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE / LANDINO, CRISTOFORO. Comento di Christophoro Landino Fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Danthe Alighieri poeta fiorentino, 1481. €40,000 to €50,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE. La Commedia [Commento di Christophorus Landinus]. Aggiunta: Marsilius Ficinus, Ad Dantem gratulatio [in latino e Italiano], 1487. €40,000 to €60,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE. Il Convivio, 1490. €20,000 to €25,000.
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: BANDELLO, MATTEO. La prima [-quarta] parte de le nouelle del Bandello, 1554. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: LEGATURA – PLUTARCO. Le vies des hommes illustres, grecs et romaines translates, 1567. €10,000 to €12,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: TOLOMEO, CLAUDIO. Ptolemeo La Geografia di Claudio Ptolemeo Alessandrino, Con alcuni comenti…, 1548. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: FESTE - COPPOLA, GIOVANNI CARLO. Le nozze degli Dei, favola [...] rappresentata in musica in Firenze…, 1637. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: SPINOZA, BARUCH. Opera posthuma, 1677. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER. Borus Godunov, 1831. €30,000 to €50,000.
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - LECUIRE, PIERRE. Ballets-minute, 1954. €35,000 to €40,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - MAJAKOVSKIJ, VLADIMIR / LISSITZKY, LAZAR MARKOVICH. Dlia Golosa, 1923. €7,000 to €10,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - MATISSE, HENRI / MONTHERLANT, HENRY DE. Pasiphaé. Chant de Minos., 1944. €22,000 to €24,000.
  • Forum AuctionsA Sixth Selection of 16th and 17th Century English Books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library19th June 2025 Forum AuctionsA Sixth Selection of 16th and 17th Century English Books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library19th June 2025
    Forum Auctions
    A Sixth Selection of 16th and 17th Century English Books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library
    19th June 2025
    Forum Auctions
    A Sixth Selection of 16th and 17th Century English Books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library
    19th June 2025
    Forum, June 19: Euclid. The Elements of Geometrie, first edition in English of the first complete translation, [1570]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum, June 19: Nicolay (Nicolas de). The Navigations, peregrinations and voyages, made into Turkie, first edition in English, 1585. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, June 19: Shakespeare source book.- Montemayor (Jorge de). Diana of George of Montemayor, first edition in English, 1598. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, June 19: Livius (Titus). The Romane Historie, first edition in English, translated by Philemon Holland, Adam Islip, 1600. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum Auctions
    A Sixth Selection of 16th and 17th Century English Books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library
    19th June 2025
    Forum, June 19: Robert Molesworth's copy.- Montaigne (Michel de). The Essayes Or Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses, first edition in English, 1603. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, June 19: Shakespeare (William). The Tempest [&] The Two Gentlemen of Verona, from the Second Folio, [Printed by Thomas Cotes], 1632. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, June 19: Boyle (Robert). Medicina Hydrostatica: or, Hydrostaticks Applyed to the Materia Medica, first edition, for Samuel Smith, 1690. £2,500 to £3,500.
    Forum, June 19: Locke (John). An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding in Four Books, first edition, second issue, 1690. £8,00 to £12,000.
  • Sotheby’sNew York Book Week12-26 June Sotheby’sNew York Book Week12-26 June
    Sotheby’s
    New York Book Week
    12-26 June
    Sotheby’s
    New York Book Week
    12-26 June
    Sotheby’s, June 25: Theocritus. Theocriti Eclogae triginta, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, February 1495/1496. 220,000 - 280,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby, 1925. 40,000 - 60,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Printed ca. 1381-1832. 400,000 - 600,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Lincoln, Abraham. Thirteenth Amendment, signed by Abraham Lincoln. 8,000,000 - 12,000,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Galieli, Galileo. First Edition of the Foundation of Modern Astronomy, 1610. 300,000 - 400,000 USD

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