• Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2017 Issue

Pick of the Litter

Lake Mohonk Hotel around 1900

Once a year or so I receive an unpretty box that is wrapped in a nuclear-proof way to ensure the contents arrive in good order.  The shipper is one of the great holdouts to today’s upscale packing conventions that have slowly become the norm over the past twenty years.  But not every dealer has taken the plunge and not this one in particular and I have no complaints for this dealer shops on my behalf for most a year and then, when prompted, admits he’s got a box or two of interesting material that he’ll soon send along.

 

Soon is a rather vague term.  If you are late to turn in homework I can confirm that “soon” doesn’t cut it.  But from experience soon is this gentlemen’s vague but ultimately reliable promise and so it was a few months back that a box, deep into its second life after having been born a storage box, emerged with the appropriate groans of the post office staff, “What’s in this box anyway?”  When/if I mention “it’s books” it often prompts an “Oh really?”

 

The book dealer?  It’s Peter Luke of New Baltimore, New York [on the Hudson River south of Albany] and this is an annual rite.  He lives near to the area I collect and looks for ephemera and the occasional book for me.  Every collector should have such support.

 

This year’s material is a single box that weighs 19.8 pounds.  Fed-ex Ground, now contesting the United Parcel Service’s dominant position in the delivery business, brought the box overland and delivered it in good order.  The box is recognizable for the exceptional amount of wrapping tape employed.  Peter’s boxes don’t fall apart.

 

Peter’s note, with the shipment, mentions that the material is not well described.  Okay, I’ve received these shipments for many years and they are never described at all.  He provides a list written in a cranky hand with a brief name, item number, and price.  The prices fall into the mid-range generally [for rarity, condition and importance].  This year there are 52 of them, more than 90% of it ephemera, that price out at $4,655.  There is also an incentive to buy all the material, this year a $1,405 discount which is void if I take even one item less than the full group offered.  In past years I’ve tried to divide the material into more and less desirable groups but the math just doesn’t work that way.  So I buy everything.  It’s much simpler though my family will someday ask “Why did Dad buy 3 copies?”  For that possible occasion, I’ll leave notes in these multiple copies suggesting they ask Peter himself.  For myself I have no complaints.

 

Here are the 52 items I purchased this year:

 

1.  Guide to the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains.  1893.  $125

2.  A Summer Paradise.  1902.  $75

3.  Tourist Map of the Hudson River.  1923.  $55

4.  The Hudson by Daylight.  1878.  $125

5.  The Story of Mohonk.  1911.  $30

6.  Image taken by a Kingston firm.  Unknown.  $45

7.  Claverack Centennial with 5 images pasted in.  1867.   $175

8.  Souvenir of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. [Albany].  $50

9.  Poughkeepsie and its Points of Interest.  1895.  $95

10.  Hudson-Fulton Souvenir Program.  1909.  $45 

11.  Van Loan’s Catskill Mountain Guide.  1892.  $285

12.  Views of The Hudson River.  Circa 1918.  $135

13.  The Scenery of the Catskill Mountains.  1876.  $100

14.  Choice Bits of Scenery in the Catskills.  Circa 1888.  $100

15.  Haunts of Rip Van Winkle.  1884.  $150

16.   Almanac, 1885.  $15

17.  Maple Grove House.  1910.  $45

18.  The Closing Argument in the case of The People vs, Reuben Dunbar for Murder.  1851.  $185

19.  Lake Mohonk Letter.  1894.  $45

20.  The Scenery of the Catskill Mountains.  Circa 1850.  $150

21.  A Sermon by Samuel Austin, D. D.  1808.  $45

22.  Mountain Echos through the Catskills.  Undated.  $45

23.  Souvenir Letter:  Athens, New York.  Circa 1905.  $35

24.  Winter Clove House, Catskill Mountains.  Circa 1890.  $45

25.  The Athens Sesquicentennial 1805 – 1955.  1955.  $25

26.  Rocks of Greene County.  1912.  $10

27.  Greetings from the Catskills.  1922.  $150

28.  Farms up the Hudson around Newburgh.  Circa 1921.  $50

29.  The Catskills:  Indelible Images.  1892.  $125

30.  The Laurel House.  Date unknown,  $100

31.  Enjoying the Catskills.  1950.  $20

32.  Views of and near Laurel House.  No date.  $285

33.  West Shore River Division Time Table.  1939.  $10

34.  Guide to Rambles from the Catskill Mountain House.  1862.  $100

35.  Sunset Park Inn.  No. date.  $75

36.  American Historical and Genealogical Publications.  Undated but early 20th century.  $20

37.  Sunset Spring Water.  Haines Falls.  Date unknown.  $20

38.  Various issues of Olde Ulster 1901-1912 est.

39.  Sally Hamilton, a put together record.  Undated.  $75 

40.  Early image of Lake Mohonk Mountain House.  Circa 1880.  $95

41.  View from the Catskill Mountain House.  Undated.  $145

42.  Image of Catskill Mountain House.  Undated.  $225

43.  Image of Kaaterskill Falls.  Undated.  $95

44.  Mid-18th to mid-19th Century Receipts in both Dutch and English.  $200

45.  Image of the Otis Elevated Rail Road.  1892.  $145

46.  Receipt for a coffin, Kingston, 1861.  $20

47.  Hudson Navigation Company.  Undated but circa 1880.  $10

48.  Catskill Mountain Guide with Maps.  1878.  $150

49.  Historic Catskill [Vedder].  Date unknown.  $75

50.  The “Old Times” Corner.  1932.

51.  The Fabulous Butlers of Brandy Hill.  1953.  $30

52.  Reminiscences of Catskill.  1868.  $65

As is always the case some of the material is exceptional and others simply good.  Overall, the shipment is simply great, good fun.  So I’m already looking forward to next year’s shipment to discover what he’s recently located.

 

Here’s the guy in the flesh.  Consider him highly recommended.

 

Peter Luke Antiques

P. O. Box 282

New Baltimore, New York 12124

Tel:  518.756.6492

[No, he doesn’t have a website]

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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