By Bruce McKinney

This month the Americana Exchange offers an amazing new tool that enables you to do something that was never before possible, search the wide world of book auctions all from one place. And, it is absolutely free. It’s the AE Auction Search, and it allows you to search book listings from over 60 worldwide auction houses, all from one place, and virtually instantaneously. What you never could do before, keep up with listings at the dozens of auction houses that frequently offer books and other printed material, has just become as easy as an internet search. And, not to be repetitive, but yes, it truly is 100% free and extremely fast.

Here’s the issue: there are dozens of auction houses that sell books and printed material, some regularly, others occasionally. Wherever you are, most are thousands of miles away. They may have catalogues and websites, but the task of reading these catalogues or searching 60+ websites regularly to find new listings is essentially impossible. Besides which, many don’t have search engines, so online you have to scroll through hundreds of listings, most of which may not even be books, to see if there’s one item hidden in there you want. Complicating matters more, many listings are not posted until shortly before the sale, so you would have to go back and re-search every site at least every few days. Even if you don’t plan on buying at these auctions right now, many serious collectors, booksellers and rare book librarians want to know what is selling at auction and at what prices in order to make intelligent collecting and business decisions.

So, here’s the solution: the AE gathers these auction listings from all over the world and places them in a single database as the unfolding portion of our complex historical records survey of books and ephemera. We now simply have decided to treat these prospective records as a free search service to encourage interest and participation in book auctions. If auctions are the pulse of the book world let that pulse beat strongly.

Now, with a single search for any term or phrase in AE Auction Search, you find every relevant lot in every upcoming documented book sale. And you find it in a few nanoseconds with each match to your search term(s) highlighted. Full lot details lie just beyond the more link in the description field. From there the auction houses are only one more click away. It is really that easy.

The AE Auction Search, can be found both on the home page (click on the AE logo to get there) and on the Auction Calendar (go to “Auctions" on the top toolbar and click “Auctions Calendar"). Both are free access. Paid members can compare upcoming material to the priced history files contained in our 675,000 full text listings. The AED (Research membership) is $10 a month or $114 a year if paid once.

AE Upcoming Auction Search

Now let’s try it. For Hemingway there are 31 lots. England finds 187, Canada 61 and Detroit 17. George Washington finds 47, Susan B. Anthony 1, Cat in the Hat 4, and All Quiet on the Western Front 2. If your curiosity hasn’t yet compelled you to look for what interests you now it is your turn. Simply enter the key word or words that are of interest and click “search." That’s all. Your results will appear in a few nanoseconds.