When you consider buying or bidding on examples of printed history often your first sense is to get into its commercial history. Why? Because printing creates identical examples and over time some of them appear at auction. When those records have been retained over decades and the centuries, the serious minded study them to develop an educated impression about their ever adjusting current value. Our primary database, Transactions+, is based upon two aspects of auction history. The first has been based on original auction documentation over the past 175 years. The other of course, has been to capture the present-day flow of material entering in the auction rooms. When these two flows meet present value is confirmed.
Over the past few months we have been adding auctions from the relatively dark ages of auction history, events that were staged in New York and Boston between 1850 to 1885. It’s compelling reading to read through lots that have since seen significant swings of relative value. Early printings of American material used to occasionally appear in the rooms and brought substantial sums while recent reprints [created between 1850 to 1870] brought good money too. The reprints have turned out to be dead money while the originals have gone through the roof. Who knew and predicted their very different outcomes?
During those years the American appreciation of England was reflected in both the extensive offerings and their prices. English cultural supremacy was a given, while American cultural values were emerging. Until their own values were enshrined, Americans they were willing to camp out under the English tent. That would diminish over time.
Today pamphlets and ephemera bring serious consideration and big money. Back then such material struggled in to get into the rooms and when they did, they arrived as bundles of multiple copies.
Manuscript material was shown deference but picking the winners and losers was an uncertain process. Some collectors early on cried “I want it all” and actually did it. Then years later they sent their treasures to the rooms as 2,000 to 4,000 item sales.
Whenever I see such excess, as a collector I can only applaud and moan. I can only imagine how these collector’s families felt.
If you would like to reimagine what it was like in those amazing times in the world of collectible paper, use your subscription and log-in. Select Advanced Search to the right of the Keyword Search.
On the lower right side select click on the field under Source. Then select these actiion houses by name
Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000
Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-1695) - Fables Choisies. Parigi: Claude Barbin, 1668. €7.000-€10.000
Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 746. Speed's Dual Atlas of Britain & the World with 96 Maps (1676). Est. $70,000 - $85,000
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 9. Visscher's Superb Double-Hemisphere World Map with Representations of the Elements (1658). Est. $4,750 - $6,000
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 58. One of the Most Important 16th Century Maps of the New World (1554). Est. $5,000 - $6,000
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 745. A Complete Example of Ortelius' Atlas of Ancient Geography (1624). Est. $12,000 - $15,000
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 73. First English Map to Show California as an Island (1625). Est. $16,000 - $19,000
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 156. Bachmann's Dramatic View of the Mid-Atlantic Region (1861). Est. $1,800 - $2,200
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 741. Early Announcement of Continental Congress' Declaration of Independence (1776). Est. $9,000 - $11,000
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 695. The First Printed Map Devoted to the Pacific (1589). Est. $8,000 - $9,500
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 733. Superb Image of the Presentation of Jesus in Hand Color (1502). Est. $700 - $850
Old World Auctions (Feb 12): Lot 52. Produced by the Psychological Warfare Branch to Encourage Surrender (1945). Est. $200 - $230