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Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2019 Issue

eCatalogues: they are becoming important. Post them here!

eCatalogues:  increasingly important for booksellers

eCatalogues: increasingly important for booksellers

With the rise of the internet and rare and used book listing sites the formulas, processes and costs for dealers have been undergoing generational changes every few years.  Not so long ago dealers had shops, relied on walk-in traffic, sent offer letters, and issued catalogues.  With the coming of the listing sites and the clarity they provided on rarity and importance local shops found themselves being compared out of business.  And by that I mean their local stock was increasingly compared to online listings, found to be too expensive and as a consequence more difficult to and less frequently sold.  Hence, over the past 20 years the loudest sound in the rare book business has been the sound of open shops closing – hence setting off a scramble to develop a new model.

 

Today their new strategies are a work in progress but one of them is clear and relatively simple, the issuance of electronic catalogues that are today, the quick product of the search of a dealer’s database and the selection of some category of material that at least loosely fits together.  Then bingo, using what software a dealer has, an electronic catalogue is created.  A few hours, even only minutes in some cases later, using one of the emailing programs their eCatalogue is on its way to the dealer’s emailing list.

 

The sales weren’t of the same volume as the earlier paper catalogues but the very idea of the catalogue has also being transformed from a difficult to create printed presentation to a quickly prepared eCatalogue whose role, although hoped to be identical to the traditional paper catalogue, is actually different for such catalogues, while selling, also convey expertise to the ever large audience that sorts through mountains of data and looks for evidence of quality and expertise.  The eCatalogue then, has become, the effective calling card to the next generation of collecting institutions and collectors.  As such, what constitutes success for such mailings must be viewed as distinctly different from the now declining printed version whose success was judged by return on investment over the first 30, 90, and 180 days.  eCatalogues build sales more slowly, cost much less, provide much more flexibility, and build relationships.

 

Into this evolving world, as other selling techniques have declined, that of the eCatalogue is rising and the logic is simple.

 

Adding impetus to this trend, those that receive these catalogues are also adapting to the decline of the printed catalogue and reading more quickly.  Count me among the avid readers of Michael Brown’s eCatalogues of archival lots.  They are very interesting.  Dewolfe and Wood’s Tuesday releases of 20 to 25 well priced, frequently rare and often obscure items arrive so regularly that I know to check my email at around 10:00 am on the west coast for their releases – to which I have succumbed perhaps a half dozen times this past year.

 

For Rare Book Hub members, we have for some years, offered a place to list/attach eCatalogues to be immediately posted to our eCatalogue section and included in section lll of Rare Book Monthly.  If you are a paid services member at any level you should post yours.

 

 

The tide that has run against dealers for a generation will now return some of the advantages that have been slowly lost.

 

For RBH paid members at any level listing eCatalogues is a standard benefit and I want to explain how to post yours on our site.

 

 

Go to Rare Book Hub – www.rarebookhub.com

 

Log into your RBH account.

 

Select Rare Book Monthly from the toolbar and scroll down to eCatalogues and select it.

 

Online eCatalogues appear.  Under the eCatalogues header on the right is the link:  Add or Update My Catalogue Here

 

Select this link to Add or modify any eCatalogues in your account.

 

If/as you have questions email us at tom@rarebookhub.com or call for help or advice.

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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, 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.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • 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 | 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.

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