By Michael Stillman
Another year has come to an end, which means it is time to look back at the AE Top 500 of book and ephemera sales at auction for 2008. This was a tough year. It certainly started well enough, a robust economy providing high-end book collectors with sufficient funds to feed their obsession. As late as July, $4 gas, painful for drivers, reflected just how booming the economy was. The year did not end this way. Next month we will have a chance to gather all of the sales figures for 2008 to present a more detailed look at the market for books. For now, the anecdotal evide...
By Bruce McKinney
The Case for and Logic behind Wiki Bibliographies: Organizing material into collectible subjects
Online book selling is tied to dated technology and assumptions that no lon...
By Michael Stillman
What nightmares has eBay wrought with its new seller rating system? With a system that affords sellers little defense against unhappy buyers, the ugly L-word - lawsuit - has ...
By Bruce McKinney
Timing is everything. In the December issue of AE Monthly we wrote the improbable but true story of a book posted in September to eBay for $2332 [BP1,299] by an English bookse...
By Renée Magriel Roberts
There are many different ways to buy books: from individuals, estate sales, auctions, publishers, distributors, and library sales. You can even publish books yourself, a...
By Bruce McKinney
Wiki Bibliographies and Reductive Pooling
Wiki Bibliographies are the answer to two questions: [1] what material lies within a field and [2] which items are available today. W...
By Michael Stillman
BookFinder.com has released its top 10 list of the most sought after out-of-print books of 2008. BookFinder provides searches of dozens of book listing sites, so they get a g...
By Bruce McKinney
The AED, the historical database of books, manuscripts and ephemera reached two million full text records a week or so ago. This database came on line September 3rd 2002 with ...
By Michael Stillman
For those who thought library theft was a big problem in the West, a survey conducted by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun found that 284,000 books were stolen from Japanese libraries ...
By Bruce McKinney
In the 19th century it was not uncommon for newspapers to publish a 'Carrier Call' or 'Carrier's Address' on the first of the year. Carriers could give this ephemera to recipi...
By Michael Stillman
The tentative sale of AbeBooks to Amazon announced last summer has now become official. The agreement announced on August 1 has gone through the appropriate due diligence, an...
The time of the year for new book catalogues has arrived as we welcome 23 new additions/editions for 2009. They are as varied as the fields of book collecting.
The William Reese Company celebra...
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 156: Cornelis de Jode, Americae pars Borealis, double-page engraved map of North America, Antwerp, 1593.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 206: John and Alexander Walker, Map of the United States, London and Liverpool, 1827.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 223: Abraham Ortelius, Typus Orbis Terrarum, hand-colored double-page engraved world map, Antwerp, 1575.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 233: Aaron Arrowsmith, Chart of the World, oversize engraved map on 8 sheets, London, 1790 (circa 1800).
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 239: Fielding Lucas, A General Atlas, 81 engraved maps and diagrams, Baltimore, 1823.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 240: Anthony Finley, A New American Atlas, 15 maps engraved by james hamilton young on 14 double-page sheets, Philadelphia, 1826.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 263: John Bachmann, Panorama of the Seat of War, portfolio of 4 double-page chromolithographed panoramic maps, New York, 1861.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 265: Sebastian Münster, Cosmographei, Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1558.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 271: Abraham Ortelius, Epitome Theatri Orteliani, Antwerp: Johann Baptist Vrients, 1601.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 283: Joris van Spilbergen, Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque Indiae, Leiden: Nicolaus van Geelkercken for Jodocus Hondius, 1619.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 285: Levinus Hulsius, Achtzehender Theil der Newen Welt, 14 engraved folding maps, Frankfurt: Johann Frederick Weiss, 1623.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 341: John James Audubon, Carolina Parrot, Plate 26, London, 1827.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue, inscribed by the author pre-publication. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Autograph sketchleaf including a probable draft for the E flat Piano Quartet, K.493, 1786. £150,000 to £200,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1667. $12,000 to $15,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Chappuzeau, Samuel. The history of jewels, first edition in English. London: T.N. for Hobart Kemp, 1671. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Sowerby, James. Exotic Mineralogy, containing his most realistic mineral depictions, London: Benjamin Meredith, 1811, Arding and Merrett, 1817. $5,000 to $7,000.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/00d5fd41-2542-4a80-b119-4886d4b9925f.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.")
