[right] Tom McKinney in the 1940's, an accidental collector
By Bruce McKinney
Everyone collects something. It's a strong human instinct. Most such collections are random and casual, often the initially inadvertent accumulation of seashells or whatever. Something was interesting or pretty and seemed worth retaining. My father was not a collector and again he was. Over his forty years of playing golf he rarely threw away his score cards or bag tags. In time, as clips and rubber bands gave way this ephemera would land in a drawer that became "Dad's golf stuff." It wasn't a collection and yet it was. On a rainy summer Saturday or in the dead of winter he'd occasionally reorganize the material into groups while talking about a course, round, or playing partners. Piles of more than 4 inches, the height of the drawer, were divided by place and era. In time his golf photographs emigrated from the family albums into the golf drawer. It was an inadvertent collection.
My mother would have said she wasn't a collector but she bought a lot of clothes and never seemed to throw anything away. Her sister and aunt shared her passion and locked themselves into her bedroom every few months to try things on. "I'm about five pounds away on that one." Her clothes were not only her history, they were also an element of her discipline. She would not have called her clothes a collection but I think they were.
Neither golf nor clothes ever meant much to me. My interests were history and place. I wasn't born with it but I was introduced early.
By a simple stroke of luck, that would have been arranged by my Mother, I spent an afternoon in 1956 with Bill Heidgerd, then President of the New Paltz [New York] Historical Society. He was an "old book" dealer and I ten. His book shop was his living room, his house one of the "old stones" on Huguenot Street. His books were on shelves, their fragile bindings, aged paper and fecund aroma together the single seed that sprouted into a lifelong interest in old material, their secrets and histories. He showed me some of what he had and spoke of what he dreamed of finding. His dream became mine, the pursuit of the "known to exist" but, for him, the yet to be discovered. His two elusives were pamphlet-books: The Indians by Abraham Bevier, printed in Rondout in 1846, and Tom Quick, The Indian Slayer published in Monticello in 1852. Had he lived a few more decades he would have seen, as I did, these Hudson Valley incunables arrive in the auction rooms and appear on the internet. Today I have three copies of the Bevier and two of the Tom Quick. The Bevier became a study of Rondout and today a collection of this place which today exists mostly in memory.
It might have been different for me if, instead of spending an afternoon with an old bookman, I had spent it with a mechanic. If so, today I might own some old cars or possibly their manuals. Living in a small town fifty years ago the options were fewer but almost everyone 'accumulated' something. The subject interested me and I continued.
These days many dealers are concerned if there is a new generation of collectors. There is. They come and go on AE in an often invisible way. By the time they arrive most have settled on a subject, if not a methodology, and their challenge become the pursuit of it as information and sometimes object. Just a few days ago a collector, who is an AE Monthly reader, was exploring Google Books that I've written about recently. References to an auction catalogue of his family's history led him to search for it online and it turns out to be one of about 1,600 auction catalogues I list in Books for Sale. It's the dispersal at Anderson Galleries in the 1920's of a book collection of a distant family member. It's his Tom Quick.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
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.
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 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 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.