Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2024 Issue

IOBA to sponsor Virtual Book, Map, and Ephemera Fair

IOBA:  Solutions for Booksellers

IOBA: Solutions for Booksellers

As part of its 25th anniversary celebration, the board of directors of the Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA) recently decided to sponsor a virtual fair featuring rare and collectible books, rare maps and ephemera. The date for the fair is May 2-4, 2024.

 

IOBA president Richard Erdmann contacted veteran book fair promoter Marvin Getman to partner in promoting the milestone anniversary, knowing that Getman has a large database comprised of collectors, librarians and dealers who attend his regular online book fairs.  Erdmann asked if it would be possible for IOBA to sponsor an online book fair on the popular easy to use platform Getman developed at the start of the Pandemic. His virtual fairs have been responsible for almost $7 million in sales and Getman recently said that his fairs are now included in ViaLibri’s rare book search engine. This will be especially good news if you are among the many viaLibri users who let the Libribot automate searching for the items listed on their want lists. If you are signed up with Libribot, you will be notified via email when matches have been found.

 

For this special anniversary fair, any member of IOBA may exhibit. Any dealer interested in inquiring about IOBA membership may go here: https://www.ioba.org/join-ioba

 

The Independent Online Booksellers Association Celebrates 25 Years With a worldwide membership of over 300 independent sellers of rare, used, and new books and ephemera, the Independent Online Booksellers Association marks 25 years of work in 2024.  The IOBA is an international non-profit trade organization founded in 1999 to support ethical and professional online bookselling.

 

For generations prior to the Internet, experienced book dealers had created accurate book descriptions for use in catalogues, using agreed-upon terminology and recognized standards of grading and passing this knowledge down. By 1999, there were online sellers copying the language of professionals, often without knowing what it meant. Others didn’t know enough about the profession to be aware that any specialized terminology or standards existed.

 

The original founders of the IOBA saw a need to somehow translate this generational standard into the online world.  To do so, the IOBA established and is dedicated to maintaining both a Book Buyers Bill of Rights and a Code of Ethics for its members. The IOBA provides scholarships, education, mentoring, and support to its members. Furthermore, it has an ethics committee to investigate any rare complaints from people who buy from IOBA members.

 

Over the years and today, the IOBA continues to represent independent booksellers. The IOBA formally challenged monopolistic companies like Amazon for its parity pricing pressure in the EU, over a decade before the United States FTC anti-monopoly lawsuit filed in September of 2023. In September of 2023, in light of new censorship under the Texas Reader Act, the IOBA formally endorsed the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement.

 

For 2024, the organization launched a separate IOBA Foundation, a nonprofit, tax-exempt institution “established for the purpose of providing continuing education for the worldwide community of independent online booksellers, as well as to promote diversity in the trade through scholarships and mentoring opportunities.”

 

Readers can find information on the IOBA’s continuing work, ethical bookselling, and cautionary tales published in trade magazines on the IOBA website, www.IOBA.org.

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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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