In 2007 he was diagnosed with cancer. He disengaged from work to focus on illness and continued to collect for another year before accepting that his pursuit of important maps was ending. Over the next year he concluded that auction was his best alternative for selling. Private advisers suggested he direct the sale himself rather than shift the burden to heirs. He had spent a half a dozen years learning about maps, learning to appreciate their complexity and value, believed in the importance of knowledge, and did not expect his children to pursue the subject with the necessary intensity. He had dealt with investments most of his adult life and come to believe that information always trumps innocence. He bought maps born of passion. He would sell now as a duty.
At the same time the stock market was declining. Retrieving his investment would become important.
The decision to choose Sotheby's was straightforward. By reputation and experience he favored them. No other house was seriously considered. The standard consignment fee for single owner sales is 10%. The deal was done at 4%. When the contract was signed on September 17th, 2009, the BP was trading at $1.65, the horizon clear. Mr. Benevento figured that prospects for a currency play between the pound and dollar favored the pound. He would engage in a little natural arbitrage. The maps were primarily European and World again confirming a European, if not London, venue. Sotheby's responded with a single owner sale, 2,000 catalogues to be distributed, a limited number of them hard bound. The offer sheet signed, the material was shipped to England on December 1st, the sale date projected for late spring later set for the afternoon of May 6th.
Later in December, in discussing the sale with this writer, the idea of including source, date and price information, a la the de Orbe Novo Sale, was broached. Frank then brought the idea to Sotheby's and later reported they didn't feel it would be helpful. It was dropped. Frank subsequently raised a second idea - of extending terms to buyers. He gathered that this was acceptable to Sotheby's but did not immediately understand that such terms would be communicated quietly, without fanfare, only to bidders inquiring for them. It turns out such terms are rarely publicized. In the ensuing two months only one bidder, Graham Arader of New York, requested and received them. Later, when Mr. Arader dominated the purchasing, buying a quarter of the lots and spending almost 40% of the total, the possibility that credit was an important factor emerged.
On April 6th, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a general election for May 6th. The date of the Benevento sale long since settled, the elaborate full color catalogue was about to be released. Two events would occur in London on May 6th.
Come sale day the auction room was mostly empty. At 2:30 pm in London as the sale was getting underway, in New York it was 9:30 am, and the New York Stock Exchange opening about even before a few hours later collapsing on a sell-side imbalance. This would be one of those days. Mr. Arader, himself in New York, commanded the sale, bidding by phone as is his norm. Seventy-eight percent of the lots sold, seventy-percent of them at or below the low estimate. A wealthy bidder from Chicago, someone introduced to Sotheby's by Mr. Benevento, was an important participant, bidding on eight expensive lots, winning two. On the six items this bidder pursed but didn't win other bidders bid more when confronted with competition. Many other items fell to walk-away bids, that is, offers at or below the low estimate. In the aftermath Mr. Benevento was left wondering if Sotheby's could have done more.
Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
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.
Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
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
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
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€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
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€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
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€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
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€
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
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
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
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
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
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
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
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