2012 In Review: Borders Liquidates, Sendak Dies, Digital Eats Print
- by Susan Halas
Borders books completed its liquidation.
Any way you measure it 2012 was a difficult and transitional years for books including publishing and book selling Be it new or used, popular titles or antiquarian rarities, the transition from print to digital accelerated. A host of electronic tablets, pads, mobile phones and readers like iPad, Kindle and Nook all showed strong upward trend lines and made ever greater inroads into the territory once occupied by the physical object – the book.
In the big picture of the whole collectible market the top sale of the year went to Munch’s 1895 work of art titled Scream which realized $119.9 million in May. That number was said to be more than the totals for all the book auctions in 2011 for both Christie's and Sotheby's combined.
The top selling publicly announced price paid for a book in 2012 was equally famous; it was Audubon’s Birds of North America which fetched over $7 million in January. Even that high point was down from a record $10 million paid only a few years ago.
Borders Liquidates, Barnes & Noble Falls, Amazon Thrives, Google Yo-Yos
This was a year that saw leading chain bookseller Borders complete liquidation of hundreds of stores and dispersal of thousands of employees. Its competitor in the retail book trade, Barnes and Noble, continued to struggle as it tried to adapt to the changing market place. A brief review of stock prices is instructive. Five years ago B&N stock was selling at $39 per share; at the end of November 2012 the price per share was just over $14.
As the market’s faith in conventional book retailing tanked, its bets on digital and e-book retailing grew ever stronger. Amazon stock, which sold for just over $90 in 2007, hit a high of $261 in Sept. 2012. Google, the mother ship of the whole trend to digitize book texts, went from a of high $693 in 2007, sunk to a low of $262 in Nov. 2008 and rebounded to high of $767 in Oct. 2012.
Still some bright spots
Little of this will come as news to AE readers. Many of those still in the book business as antiquarian or on-line sellers had a challenging year, but there were some bright spots too.
Other venues had some high points as well. ABE books, one of the leading databases for on-line book sellers reported on top sales monthly. Among the figures reported by ABE for 2012 were:
* $46,000 an inscribed first of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale
* $30,000 – Kafka’s Die Verwanglund (The Metamorphosis)
* $25,000 Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are
* $20,000 an Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
* $19,500 La Perrouse voyage
* Almost $17,000 a 17th century book on mushrooms
* $14,500 for Wydnham’s sci fi classic Day of the Triffids
* $12,500 for extremely limited edition of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses
* $9,700 for a Dali illustrated limited edition of Don Quijote
* $5,750 for a signed first trade edition of Steinbeck’s East of Eden
ABE also noted a number of books on cocktails and mixology made top prices
On-line sales at eBay also demonstrated some strong highlights, with categories for antiquarian, antique, fiction, non-fiction, children’s books and cook books. Top sellers in a variety of book related categories included Fleming, Oz books, Hemingway, and the first issue of Playboy with Marilyn Monroe on the cover. (For more details browse the link what sells best on eBaywww.whatsellsbest.com/best-ebay-live-book-auction.html)
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
Fonsie Mealy’s Rare Books & Collectors’ Sale April 30th & May 1st
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Taylor (Geo.) & Skinner (A.) Maps of the Roads of Ireland, Surveyed 1777. Lond. & Dublin 1778. €500 to €750.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Messingham (Thos.) Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum seu Vitae et Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, Paris 1624. €350 to €500.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus). The Haw Lantern, L. (Faber & Faber) 1987, First Edn., Signed and dated. €225 to €350.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Valencey (Lt. Col. Chas.) Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols. Dublin 1786. €400 to €600.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Powerscourt (Viscount). A Description and History of Powerscourt, Lond. 1903. €350 to €500.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Moryson (Fynes). An Itinerary ... Containing His Ten Yeeres Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohermerland, Sweitzerland…, Lond. (John Beale) 1617. €700 to €1,000.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: After Buffon, Birds of Europe, c. 1820. Approx. 120 fine hd. cold. plts., mor. backed boards. €125 to €250.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Dunlevy (Andrew). An Teagasg Criosduidhe De Reir Ceasda agus Freagartha... The Catechism or Christian Doctrine by Way of Question and Answer, Paris (James Guerin) 1742. €400 to €700.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1:The Georgian Society Records of Eighteen-Century Domestic Architecture in Dublin, 5 vols. Complete, Dublin 1909-1913. €500 to €750.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Scale (Bernard). An Hibernian Atlas or General Description of the Kingdom of Ireland, L. (Robert Sayer & John Bennet) 1776. €625 to €850.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Nichlson (Wm.) Illustrator. An Almanac of Twelve Sports, Lond. 1898. €300 to €400.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) trans. The Light of the Leaves, 2 vols., Mexico (Imprenta de los Tropicos/Bunholt) 1999. €1,500 to €2,000.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Fleming (Ian). Moonraker, L. (Jonathan Cape) 1955. €1,500 to €2,000.