Collecting the Counter Culture - Maggs’ Carl Williams pays a visit to Harvard’s Houghton Library
- by Susan Halas
Leslie Morris Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts at Harvard's Houghton Library -Harvard Gazette
“Williams found his niche with a little help from Edward Maggs,” Daze continues, “the man who inherited the family firm. 'There might have been something brewing in Ed’s mind that we needed to cover this demographic,’ says Williams.”
“It really began when I started cataloguing all this proto-counter-culture American Beat stuff from the 50s and it did really well – I sold about 80 per cent of it. I designed a catalogue based on Ginsberg’s Howl, the same size and typeface. It did well, people liked it and I realised I had the right skills for the subject.”
Asked by AE Monthly how he arrives at valuation for the items he sells, Williams acknowledged it was not an easy call because, “It’s rare to sell the same thing twice.”
“At Maggs,” he said the bottom prices start at “about 35 pounds.” They go up from there to “as much as a million Euros.” And though the field may be of enormous popular interest at the moment, he can count his “serious customers” on the fingers of two hands. For him, that’s an improvement, “I only had one before.”
As for future trends, Williams said predictions are not his specialty, but it wouldn’t surprise him if one day he started offering “hard drives and email transcripts.” That day has not yet arrived, but quoting Hegel, “the owl of Minerva flies at dusk.”
That means we only know in hindsight what’s hot (and stayed hot), seldom in advance.
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
Ketterer, May 26:Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
Ketterer, May 26:PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
![Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/dc0b1dc0-f7c8-40b6-a5a6-870689484c07.jpg "<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€")
