Rare Book Monthly

Articles - January - 2018 Issue

How can we help in 2018?

How can we help in 2018?

 

Change is now embedded in the fields of rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera.  Knowledge continues to increase, even explode, and as it does, the value and relative importance of material changes.  Add to that an evolving collector base and heavy dealer inventories and it sometimes seems to be a blur.

 

We will be trying to support you this year, be you a collector, institution or dealer.   How can we best do this?  Tell us what you see as the problems and opportunities for the field.  We will try to address them.

 

Do so by adding your comments to this article and/or emailing me directly at bmckinney@rarebookhub.com.

 

Begin your replies with I’m a dealer, dealer-collector or someone associated with an institution. 

 

How long have you been involved in the field?

 

What do you have?  Could be books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera, Also paintings, other artwork and furniture. Or other and if so, what?

 

If buying, selling or both, how do you do this?  On listing sites, from catalogs, at shows, at shops, or at auction?

 

You stock or collection is probably worth about?

 

Your expectations for the next 10 years?

 

 

About Rare Book Hub

 

Do you regularly use our services?  Which ones and how often?

 

What would you like to see more of or more often?  We are open to your ideas.

 

 

Bruce McKinney

Rare Book Hub

bmckinney@rarebookhub.com

877.323.7273


Posted On: 2018-01-14 08:13
User Name: xiaolipo

I have been collecting books on the Far East, especially China, and in particular periodicals published by westerners in China from the 19th C onward. Very hard to say how much my collection is worth: I recently saw Maggs in London offering for 75000 Euros a book which I turned down at auction 35 years ago because it was far too expensive at the equivalent of 300 Euros! Prices in this field have become absurd, which makes it difficult to collect -- and material of the kind that interests me appears on the market less and less frequently. So the next 10 years will probably just continue getting more difficult. I buy mainly at auction and occasionally from specialist booksellers: almost never from shops - they don't carry the material I am looking for. I use regularly your weekly auction roundup and also e-catalogues. I would subscribe to your database but lack of time prevents me - it would be a delightful distraction: in a few years time perhaps. One request to make life easier: when I search future auctions for material on China, the results have recently been swamped by hundreds of Chinese coins and notes (and occasionally stamps), often from Heritage - and occasionally porcelain (White House 'china' etc). Is there any way of keeping this out of listings of books and works on paper? It's a bit of a pain when you have 350 coins and only 40 books in a search result. That aside, Rare Book Hun is a truly excellent resource. Thanks for making it available.


Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s: William Shakespeare.
    The Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare, 1960. 7,210 USD
    Sotheby’s: Charles Dickens.
    A Christmas Carol, First Edition, 1843. 17,500 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Golding.
    Lord of the Flies, First Edition, 1954. 5,400 USD
    Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s: Lewis Carroll.
    Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Inscribed First Edition, 1872. 25,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: J.R.R. Tolkien.
    The Hobbit, First Edition, 1937. 12,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: John Milton.
    Paradise Lost, 1759. 5,400 USD

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