Rare Book Monthly Articles - November - 2006 Issue

The Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair

The Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair

By Bruce McKinney Over the weekend of October 14th and 15th, the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair was held on the grounds of the 1962 World's Fair. It was the perfect setting for the well-attended affair. The fair was organized, as it has been for the past 9 years, by Louis Collins of Louis Collins Books and David Gregor of Gregor Rare Books. Ninety-one exhibitors, primarily from the Northwest, brought on average about 300 items to sell. On Saturday morning, promptly at 10:00 am, the doors opened to an energetic crowd that passed 400 by noon and reached 1000 late ...

Abebooks Reaches The 100 Million Listings Milestone

Abebooks Reaches The 100 Million Listings Milestone

By Michael Stillman In an October 4th press release, the largest old and used books listing site, Abebooks, announced that it had reached a new milestone -- 100 million books listed online. Abe ...

Creating Special Purpose Catalogues

Creating Special Purpose Catalogues

By Bruce McKinney Inventories are broad, collector interests increasingly specific. The internet, that both intensified the trend toward specialization and increasingly satisfies it, does not ...

Alibris To Open UK Site (and Resolve a Longstanding Shipping Problem)

Alibris To Open UK Site (and Resolve a Longstanding Shipping Problem)

By Michael Stillman Alibris has announced that it will be opening a UK site in November, to serve the British and European markets. In the past, there has only been one site, with all orders p...

Where have the Collectors Gone?  Gone to the Internet Everyone!

Where have the Collectors Gone? Gone to the Internet Everyone!

By Bruce McKinney For those who rely on book fairs to sell books the line that comes to mind is William Bendix's "What a revoltin' development this is." New collecting opportunities every day ...

A Great Tool for Booksellers: <i>The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</i>

A Great Tool for Booksellers: <i>The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</i>

by Renee Magriel Roberts Writing really great book descriptions is the key to better bookselling, which I define as providing excellent service and accurate information for customers, combined ...

Closing The Chapter: One Last Sentence For Smiley's Story

Closing The Chapter: One Last Sentence For Smiley's Story

By Michael Stillman The case of map thief E. Forbes Smiley came to a close October 13, 2006, when he was sentenced to five years in prison at the Connecticut Superior Court in New Haven. In thi...

Upcoming Auction:  The Private World of Truman Capote

Upcoming Auction: The Private World of Truman Capote

By Bruce McKinney Truman Capote may have been a man but these days he's an industry. He was born in a red state but is very big business in the blue states these days. He is of course the cel...

Google Loses A Skirmish In A Belgian Court

Google Loses A Skirmish In A Belgian Court

By Michael Stillman An interesting skirmish took place in a Belgian court a few weeks ago which may have implications for the battle between search giant Google and publishers unhappy with Goog...

On Voting

On Voting

By Bruce McKinney Voting has a mysterious power. Those who didn't have it have stormed barricades to get it. The American south felt it was so important they passed laws to keep it beyond the...

Would You Like Fries With That? -- Amazon Sells Groceries

Would You Like Fries With That? -- Amazon Sells Groceries

By Michael Stillman Amazon.com, the world's best-known bookselling site, recently expanded its offerings with the announcement that they would now be selling groceries online. In a letter from ...

Fourteen Catalogues Reviewed In Section Two

Fourteen Catalogues Reviewed In Section Two

Fourteen new booksellers' catalogues are reviewed in Section Two of November's AE Monthly. Represented, along with the U.S., are sellers from England, France, the Netherlands, and Argentina. There ...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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

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