Rare Book Monthly

Articles - February - 2013 Issue

Baltimore Book Company calls it a day

Chris Bready

Chris Bready

As one door opens another closes.  Chris Bready the cataloguer-book auctioneer of Towson, Maryland, one of the last of the old-style book auctioneers, conducted his final sale of Baltimore Book Auctions on January 17th.  He professes no regrets.  “I’ve had a very good time.”

He began his career in 1980 writing descriptions for Harris and in 1989 organized Baltimore Book Company to sell books at auction.   From the outset he was and always remained a maverick.  “I’ve been and remain a one man operation.  I would find material and make my pitch.  Those who consigned quickly understood they were speaking to the salesman, the cataloguer and the shipper.  I worked hard to obtain the best outcomes for my clients and could always sleep at night.“

Chris entered the field as auctions were beginning a shift from their traditional function of providing redistribution within the trade at wholesale prices to the then just emerging orientation to retail.  Sotheby’s would single-handedly change the rules in the early 1980s and in time see almost all auctions orient themselves to retail.  Chris did not.

He, New England Book Auctions and a few others sought to continue to be wholesalers to the trade and for years the strategy was effective.  Most other auction houses in time found increasing their retail orientation effective for attracting consignments and raising realizations so few if any reverted.  Consignors in turn adjusted, increasingly expecting the retail effort and the higher prices this brought.

The differences between redistribution within the trade and retail were initially primarily in description and presentation.  Pedestrian catalogues and thin descriptions less deterred dealers than collectors and institutions because, from years of experience, they tended to recognize the under-estimated and/or important but thinly described.  Added to this, it was de rigueur for serious dealers to maintain elaborate private research libraries.   The dealer then only needed to have a hunch.  They then often had hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of research volumes to consult.  The public did not.
  

The arrival of elaborated descriptions the same year Chris entered the field in 1980 threatened, from the dealer's perspective, to broaden the bidding audience by enticing collectors and institutions, now armed with more information to contest lots that a few years earlier would have been routinely purchased by the trade.  To this the trade rebelled, shunning the Sotheby’s approach.  In 1982 Christie's too ‘went retail’ effectively ending the war and confirming the emerging trend for auction catalogues to include bibliographic details and explain significance, often in great detail.
   

Emerging retail auction orientation in the 1980s then created a divide within the auction field that by 1989, when Chris established Baltimore Book Auction, was already shifting decisively toward retail.  Chris chose to orient his sales to the trade and would continue to do so for the next twenty-five years, his final sale on January 17th one of the last examples of the old school.  At the end his mailing list was shrunken and his consignments mostly those in the lower value category.


Posted On: 2013-02-02 00:00
User Name: Michele

Chris and I never met, but I was a frequent bidder at his auctions.

It was a pleasure to exchange witticisms with him via phone as I placed my b


Rare Book Monthly

  • Swann, June 12: Lot 3:
    Thomas McKenney and James Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America, 1848-1854. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 8:
    Invoice to the Town of Boston for advertising pre-revolutionary content in the Boston Post Boy, manuscript document, Boston, July 1768. Estimate $5,000 to $7,500.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 13:
    Clairac and Nicola, L'Ingenieur de Campagne; or, Field
    Swann, June 12: Lot 81:
    Journals of Major Robert Rogers . . . of the Several Excursions he Made . . . upon the Continent of North America, London, 1765. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 99:
    Photograph albums and papers from the family of W.G. Fargo, photo albums containing 442 photographs, 1865-88. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 112:
    Isaac Leeser, Discourses on the Jewish Religion, 10 volumes, Philadelphia: Sherman & Co., 1866-1868. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 176:
    Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Boston, 1845. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 190:
    Thomas Hariot, Admiranda narratio fida tamen, de commodis et incolarum ritibus Virginiae, 1590. Estimate $25,000 to $35,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 200:
    Correspondence of a regimental cavalry commander in Wyoming and Utah, July 1865 to February 1866. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, June 12: Lot 226:
    Maturino Gilberti, Vocabulario en lengua de Mechuacan / Aqui comienca el vocabulario en la lengua Castellana y Mechuacana, 1559. Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.
  • Sotheby's
    Bibliothèque Jacques Dauchez - Autour de Dubuffet
    5-19 June
    Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Bissière, Roger. Cantique à notre frère soleil de saint François. 1954. 1,000 - 1,500 EUR
    Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. La vie & l’œuvre de Philippe Ignace Semmelweis. 1924. Rare édition originale, avec envoi. Joint : La Quinine en thérapeutique, 1925. 4,000 - 6,000 EUR
    Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Mort à crédit. 1936. Édition originale. Bel exemplaire sur Hollande. 2,500 - 3,500 EUR
    Sotheby's
    Bibliothèque Jacques Dauchez - Autour de Dubuffet
    5-19 June
    Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Chillida, Eduardo ─ Emil Cioran. Face aux instants. 1985. Un des 100 exemplaires sur Arches. Eau-forte signée. 600 - 800 EUR
    Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Dubuffet, Jean. Ler dla canpane. L’Art Brut, 1948. Édition originale. 3,000 - 5,000 EUR
    Sotheby’s, June 5-19: Dubuffet, Jean. L'Herne Jean Dubuffet. 1973. Un des 100 exemplaires du tirage de luxe avec une sérigraphie originale en couleurs. 1,000 - 1,500 EUR
  • Gros & Delettrez
    Livres & Manuscrits Arméniens
    Jeudi 12 juin 2025
    Paris, Francis
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    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: CHARAKNOTS, manuscrit XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: CHARAKNOTS, manuscrit daté 1606, reliure arménienne
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: CHARAKNOTS, manuscrit début XVIIIe siècle, reliure arménienne
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: CHARAKNOTS, Amsterdam 1664
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: CHARAKNOTS, Amsterdam 1702, reliure arménienne
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: DICTIONNAIRE arménien, manuscrit XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle.
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: EVANGILE, manuscrit 1735-1737, reliure arménienne
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: LIVRE DE PRIERES, Grégoire de Narek, manuscrit
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: GEOGRAPHIE, Ghoukas INDJIDJIAN, Venise 1802-1806
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: MANUSCRIT THEOLOGIQUE, XVIe-XVIIe siècle
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: MASHTOTS, manuscrit XVIIIe-XIXe siècle, reliure arménienne
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: LETTRE ENCYCLIQUE, manuscrit XIXe siècle
    Gros & Delettrez, June 12: NOUVEAU TESTAMENT, Amsterdam 1668, reliure arménienne
  • Rose City Book & Paper Fair
    June 14-15, 2025
    1000 NE Multnomah, Portland
    ROSECITYBOOKFAIR.COM

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