Rare Book Monthly

Articles - January - 2021 Issue

Part I - The Year that Was, the year that Will Be

Bruce McKinney

Bruce McKinney

2020 for many has been harrowing.  I requested representatives of some of the principal organizations in the rare paper field for their perspectives on what 2020 has meant and what their experience suggests the field will be in the immediate future.  Almost all individuals and organizations that were contacted graciously prepared statements.

 

The Year that Was is in 3 parts in Rare Book Monthly:

Part 1 – This story

Part 2 – Perspectives from the Auctions

Part 3 – Perspectives from Dealer Organizations + Marvin Getman’s Electronic Book Fairs

 

Catherine Williamson of Bonhams,

Christina Geiger of Christies,   

Stephan Ludwig of Forum Auctions,

Selby Kiffer on behalf of Sotheby’s

Nicho Lowry on behalf of Swann Galleries

 

Roger Treglown & Pom Harrington of the ABA,

Susan Benne of the ABAA,

Sally Burdon of ILAB,

and

Marvin Getman of Virtual Book and Paper Fairs have offered their statements about what we went through and what we can expect in 2021.  Taken together they are promising and cautious. 

 

Let’s set the dreamscape

 

The rare book fairs in New York in early March were inadvertently at the hinge where reality and nightmare fantasy went their separate ways.  It was known in February in the scientific community that the illness known to history as Covid-19 was getting out-of-control in China and that random cases were appearing in the United States, Asia and Europe.  Almost immediately the impending epidemic was expressed in political rather than medical terms, causing delays to protect the population and the economy.  New York City soon engulfed, was closed to in-person business and many of America’s auction houses and dealers around the world closed their offices, organizing work from home protocols, operating via online conferences.

 

Book fairs as in-person events came to a dead stop but both the ABAA and Marvin Getman’s Virtual Book Fair took the challenge to offer online book fairs as a renewed experiment that continues to create ever larger footprints.

 

Auction houses in New York and elsewhere responded worldwide by creating online auctions in place of in-person events and as the Covid 19 numbers began to surge, the book, manuscript, map and ephemera buying community slowly joined the bidding.  By year-end, our provisional totals suggest, by every measure, auctions successfully adjusted:

 

                        2019                            2020

Auctions          1669                            1871

Lots                 517,145                       528,239

Lots Sold         395,690                       430,969

% Sold             77%                             81.58%           

 

In previous financial disasters and during World Wars auctions shrank to insignificance.  The difference of course has been the Internet. 

 

Into the fall, as the bidding was strengthening, consignors were finding the time between consignment to sale, had been significantly reduced, providing new flexibility.  Covid has been a human disaster but the rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera component of collectibles has found it possible to rethink and remake a field that has long been rigid in its conformity.

 

As substantial as the growing acceptance for online auctions has been, the changes in book fairs have been a revelation – creating the atmosphere of a fair electronically, with unheard of search efficiency, knowing who has what, to see, inspect, ask and get answered and agree to buy.  Most observers wax wistful for the idea traditional book fairs will be back but as many now believe the electronic book fair is going to always be part of the future even as traditional person to person fairs gloriously rebound.   For dealers, fairs be they online or in-person, are vital.

 

For those dealers whose business has comprised a significant institutional component, they have been in some cases disproportionately damaged as Covid-19 restrictions have altered enrollments and reduced budgets.  They are still expected to be committed buyers but their budgets have been restrained and delayed.  They will be back.

 

Overhanging the expected recovery, Covid-19 remains a question mark.  Wishful thinking that the pandemic would burn itself out has been frequently pronounced and consistently proven to be wrong.  In-hospital treatment has dramatically improved but at the same time the number of cases continue to surge.  Almost mystically, let’s just call it what it is, a miracle, out of the fog of 4 year projections given us last summer, the first vaccines are now being released and projections suggest science will slay Covid-19 later in the year.

 

The health crisis will pass but many citizens will find their finances in tatters.  Inflation after an absence of almost 30 years will in a few years begin to leave a permanent hangover.  Significant tax increases are inevitable.  And we’ll adjust.  Life is an experience and rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera are a wonderful part of it.

 

This completes my overview and I‘m connecting you to Part 2, the perspectives of 5 seasoned auction professionals, and then part 3, the views of ILAB, ABAA and ABA as well as Marvin Getman, the book fair impresario.

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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.
  • 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.

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