Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2003 Issue

Shakers, Maine, and Everything Else A Visit with DeWolfe and Wood

The old safe from when the store was a bank.

The old safe from when the store was a bank.


The second floor is divided into several smaller rooms, each with its own purpose. In one, Wood keeps a collection of bibliographies. This is another of his specialties. He points out that he doesn’t use them as much as he used to. Online bibliographical sources, such as the Americana Exchange Database, are major timesavers. He looks at this development with mixed feelings. He understands that the speed afforded by technology is necessary to compete these days, but misses the long hours he used to spend with these books about books.

Another room houses old newspapers. This is where Wood reads through them to see if anyone he knows will want that issue. This is particularly a wintertime activity.

Finally, there’s a third floor, reached through a separate outside exit. A long, narrow spiral staircase reaches up to a large, mostly open space. Great seals are located on the walls. This was once home to the Masons. In 1869, they signed a 100-year lease for the space. True to their word, the Masons moved out in 1969. Wood notes that the stairs were getting to be too much for some of the older members. Today there are a few piles of books waiting to be sorted in the open space. Otherwise, the hall is awaiting renovation. A leaky roof caused some damage, and while the roof has been fixed, the space itself still needs some repair.

The major event for DeWolfe and Wood came when they picked up the collection of the late Francis O’Brien. O’Brien had been the major bookseller in Maine and was well known nationally. He had a barn filled with books. “You couldn’t move in it,” says Scott DeWolfe. They picked up around 150,000 books from O’Brien’s collection. Today they will buy two or three large collections (20,000-30,000 books) a year. The largest percentage of their books are sold to fellow dealers, sometimes entire collections.

The average price of the books they sell is $20-$25. The least expensive items will be sold in the store or at flea markets. The most expensive items are sold at shows. Their most expensive item outside of Shaker material was a Gold Rush diary picked up in a large collection. It went for $20,000. Most items online are priced between $10 and $50.

To learn more about DeWolfe and Wood, and to check out some of the Shaker and Maine titles they carry, go to their website: www.dwbooks.com (You can also find Elizabeth DeWolfe’s (Scott’s wife) Shaking the Faith, written about Mary Marshall Dyer’s anti-shaker campaigns from 1815-1867, on the site.) Their phone number is 207-490-5572. Better yet, pay them a visit. To find Alfred on a state map, think of two words rarely associated with Maine: south and west. Alfred is located in the southwest corner of the state. It’s an easy 15-minute detour off the main Atlantic coast highway, Interstate 95. That’s less than 2 hours up I-95 from Boston, 6 hours from New York, or 24 hours straight up the interstate from Florida. Detailed directions are available on the website.

Rare Book Monthly

  • GonnelliAuction 59Antique prints, paintings and mapsMay 20th 2025 GonnelliAuction 59Antique prints, paintings and mapsMay 20th 2025
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    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
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    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
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    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
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    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
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    Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
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    Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
    Ketterer, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
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    Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
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    Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
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    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
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    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
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    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

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