Rare Book Monthly Articles - October - 2008 Issue

Connecting Word and Image

Connecting Word and Image

By Bruce McKinney This article is in two parts. The written portion is three pages. The second part is a video. Links to the video are provided here and at the end of the article. AE Youtube Video Fifty years of book collecting has brought me to this. I collect books as avidly as ever but these days collect subjects rather than books and do so with a precision and efficiency that was, until ten years ago, unimaginable. I still buy books but today see them as one thread in a tapestry of images, paintings, pamphlets, ephemera, documents and manuscripts that, taken together bring...

Arrests Made in Theft of First Book Printed in the American West

Arrests Made in Theft of First Book Printed in the American West

By Michael Stillman Thefts of rare and valuable books from institutional libraries almost seem to be becoming commonplace these days. Such a theft, and thankfully, concomitant arrest, hit the wi...

Hunkering Down

Hunkering Down

by Renée Magriel Roberts With all of the craziness going on this week, I was thinking about doing a review of John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash 1929, but instead I decided to share what w...

Paraclete Potter:  A Wiki-Bibliography

Paraclete Potter: A Wiki-Bibliography

By Bruce McKinney Recently I purchased, for $80, an impaired copy of "The Life of General George Washington, Late President of the United States of America, and Commander in Chief of their Armie...

Cardiff Considers Selling 18,000 Books. Residents Debate:  Smart Move or Desecration?

Cardiff Considers Selling 18,000 Books. Residents Debate: Smart Move or Desecration?

By Michael Stillman A battle over rare books is taking place today in the city of Cardiff, South Wales, UK, that is significant because it raises the most vexing of issues regarding libraries an...

Fifteenth Annual Central Valley Antiquarian Book Fair

Fifteenth Annual Central Valley Antiquarian Book Fair

By Karen Wright Our big Chevy Suburban was loaded down with twenty boxes of really cool books, eight collapsible bookshelves (whoever invented them deserves a big kiss), and all the falderal one...

Washington-Pike-Mathematics-Science Archive to be Sold

Washington-Pike-Mathematics-Science Archive to be Sold

By Bruce McKinney Nicholas Pike of Newbury-port has been dead a long time but for a few weeks this fall the 18th century New England mathematician is back on stage at John McInnis Auctions in Am...

<i>In The News:</i>  Ebay Thief Sentenced, Two Exhibitions, Abe's Top 10

<i>In The News:</i> Ebay Thief Sentenced, Two Exhibitions, Abe's Top 10

By Michael Stillman A 74-year-old Great Falls, Montana, man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison last month for a massive eBay theft-and-sale scheme he had been running from his home. James Br...

Smart Phones:  Database Access for Geezers

Smart Phones: Database Access for Geezers

By Tom McKinney Rare Books on the Go Mobile computing is changing the world. From online banking, to social networking, to bidding on eBay, everything is being streamlined for the mobil...

Odd Bidding on eBay

Odd Bidding on eBay

By Bruce McKinney Recently I ran across a listing on eBay for a book that was achieving a price far beyond what it commands on listing sites. I know that some people bid primarily on eBay and m...

Nude Mice, Lesbian Horses, and Other Odd Book Titles

Nude Mice, Lesbian Horses, and Other Odd Book Titles

By Michael Stillman England's The Bookseller has announced the winner of its contest for the oddest book title of the past 30 years. The Bookseller has been running competitions for 30 years, bu...

November Comet Announced:  Local History

November Comet Announced: Local History

By Bruce McKinney We live in the era of "it's all about me" and the proof is in the explosive growth of genealogy on the web. No subject so captivates us as ourselves and it is transforming the...

17 New Catalogues Reviewed

17 New Catalogues Reviewed

Seventeen new booksellers catalogues are considered in this month's review section of AE Monthly. A magnificent new catalogue has just been published by Phillip J. Pirages. Garrett Scott, Bookselle...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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
  • 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

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