Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2018 Issue

The Structure of Multi-form History Collections Considered

The availability of many forms of collectible material causes some collectors to consider or reconsider if they are exclusively a book, map, manuscript, photography or ephemera collector.  Most collectors will buy things from every category but probably continue to describe themselves as a collector of a particular form.  They should reconsider.  Here is my experience.

 

From an early age I was a book collector focusing on local books about Ulster County in New York.  The number of potential items was graphically presented to me by a local historian who was also a book collector.  Gesturing to his shelves in 1956 he pointed to a less than single shelf saying “these are the local collectible books I have found” and also offered that he was aware of other volumes he knew to exist but had not yet acquired.  The total was about 45.  How did he know about the unseen volumes?  He pointed to his run of Sabin and mentioned Howe’s Usiana.  A few months later, for my 11th birthday, I received through the mail in a padded box I kept for years, Wright Howes’ Usiana of ten thousand examples of printed Americana. In time that book would travel thousands of miles with me, early-on on my bike, later in my car when going to auctions, chasing leads, and visiting dealers in Boston, Albany and New York.

 

Howes was very useful and portable but Sabin’s the storied backbone for serious collectors of printed Americana.  Forty-six years later in 2002 when I started the Americana Exchange online as a research site the full 29 volumes of Sabin'a Bibliotheca Americana were its original bedrock records, in fact two thirds of the original 151,000 records, we offered.  In that era the collecting of printed material was still almost entirely the collecting of books.

 

Since 2002 the field has been at the center of a revolution.

 

If the internet was first a series of lists it is today both those lists and increasingly the complete contents of every item on those lists, many if not most with images.  When all such material is within a single database a single search is efficient.  When that database contains hundreds, even thousands of sources the efficiency is magnified hundreds of times over.

 

The transaction database on RBH now includes more than 8.7 million lots at auction that reflect the at-auction history of well over 99% of all collectible printed material, a significant number that provides statistical support for rarity and value but is itself a small number compared to the plethora of potentially related ephemera.

 

For more than twenty years I’ve been collecting the history of the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State and the changing nature of what I bought increasingly made it difficult to organize the collection as a book collection with benefits.  For the past two years I have been trying to reimagine how such a collection might be divided and segmented and I think I’ve now found a workable solution.

 

If the original idea for a local collection, as suggested by Bill Heidgerd, was 24 to 30 inches of books on a single shelf, that collection now incorporates 8,000 to 10,000 items.  Certainly all or almost all of the important books are present.  As a fifth grader occupying several hours on a summer afternoon with a serious local historian in 1956 I came away understanding that collecting was the marriage of search and possession.  Understanding was less certain, then explained as the “study of the facts by those knowledgeable enough to interpret the information,” an apparently very small group.

 

These days I’m focusing on understanding, trying to make thousands of items mesh, so to provide intense immediate clarity on the past.  In other words, I’m trying to bring the past back into the current conversation.  To get started I’ve reorganized my collection.  Here is how I’m doing it.

 

I have chosen categories, in fact places to differentiate by printed place and/or referenced subject. 

 

Here is the present list:

 

Albany [New York]

Ulster County

New Paltz

Lower Ulster and Newburgh

Poughkeepsie [and Dutchess County]

The Railroads

River Commerce [and its boats]

Disasters [Train collisions, ship wrecks, and fires]

Local Medals and Money

 

Related books are on the shelves, ephemera in boxes and maps in drawers.  Objects that relate are sitting nearby.  As well, some categories of material such as medals and ribbons are in separate boxes.  This makes the collection understandable and accessible and provides logical destinations for new material, an important aspect of this approach as collecting continues for the collector until the money or time runs out.

 

Eight of the subjects will have a painting that reflects some aspect of its history.  For New Paltz a depiction of the Burning of the Normal School at New Paltz in 1906 was completed in September 2018.  A painting of the waterfront at Rondout, circa 1880, is expected to be completed in spring 2019.

 

The goal will be to digitize all material and make every aspect of each item searchable.

 

The database is envisioned as a living entity and therefore one to which new material can be added regularly.  Given that ephemera is thought to outnumber books by at least 1,000 to 1 this suggests that the collection, just for Ulster County, could approach 100,000 items.

 

As to what we might find, it’s already apparent that the people of Ulster County have lived and relived the many events of human existence, seen their prospects rise, fall and rise again. 

 

As to what this database can most provide, it’s perspective.  These days we are living in the moment.  Ulster County history will remind us we have all been here before.  Perhaps, with detailed access to the past, we can regain a current perspective.  We make better decisions when we take the time to think.    

 

In time I believe the database will be more valuable than the collection as most research is done online without direct reference to underling copies.

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly! Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
    Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
    Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025 DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    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 | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025 Freeman’s | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025
    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 AuctionsFine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper  17th July 2025 Forum AuctionsFine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper  17th July 2025
    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’sBooks, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to ModernNow through July 10, 2025 Sotheby’sBooks, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to ModernNow through July 10, 2025
    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.

Article Search

Archived Articles