Dreweatts and Bloomsbury Auctions Acquired by the Noble Investment [UK] PLC Group
- by Bruce E. McKinney
These are days when the future of bookselling is a bit clouded and the coin and fabric of the field seemingly subject to relentless retesting. Even so there are glimmers of new realities that exploit opportunities in the rapid changes. Consolidation is the new ‘it’ as the shift to the web demands high and continuing investments in order to be ever complete and always up-to-date. Ten years ago software upgrades were done and then thought complete. Today software development never ends, the shark in replacement of the lion.
So it is logical, and probably inevitable, that smart people would see the logic in combining disparate auction houses under a single umbrella to share costs and benefits - from advertising to display and bidding and all things financial. Such roll-ups gain significant advantages.
Heritage comes to mind as the textbook model writ large of an auction house selling across a range of categories. Bonhams too is redefining auction services. One step up Sotheby’s and Christies have created marketing juggernauts that sell most things collectible when the quality and potential realization are high. They have effectively organized their own brands and shifted the focus if not the emphasis from what is being sold to who is selling it. The notion of brand is now deeply embedded; the request at lunch for a coke, not a soda, recognition that our personal dictionaries are increasingly populated with marketed names whose goals have long been to become verbs.
It is too early to say how this fresh combination will work. Brilliant thinkers have long dominated the auctions. Rarer still are the brilliant executioners and in this new model it will be the conceptualist with great programming and marketing resources that will carry the day.
Nobel Investments has brought Dreweatts and Bloomsbury to the starting line of the next big race, to becoming a marketing verb in the United Kingdom and on other continents where there will be much to be sold and where marketing powerhouses will handle most of the best material.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
![Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/148a7ca4-9746-44c9-a75e-86229b6f10d2.png "<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.")
![Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/863855a8-4b41-4512-b168-a4a3eab5d6a6.png "<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.")
![Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/64dbb393-4712-4536-a1a6-26d823c523dc.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Ending July 10:</b> John Gould. <i>The Birds of Europe,</i> [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.")
![DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/4ce5fa1d-1943-4413-a80d-7b5c75383e7e.jpg "<b>DOYLE, July 23:</b> [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800")
![DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/fa635c85-6b12-44f2-8832-2087579574d9.jpg "<b>DOYLE, July 23:</b> [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. <i>Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions.</i> San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.")
![DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/af9f4e1a-90c2-428c-8d49-9624b070c7a9.jpg "<b>DOYLE, July 23:</b> TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. <i>Anna Karénina ... in eight parts.</i> New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600")
