By Bruce McKinney
An interesting shop in the San Francisco barrio south of Market Street; this is Bolerium Books on Mission. The street is busy, the traffic young. From down the street a giant BOOKS sign, in the same type and size New York used a few years ago to salute the Yankees after winning their umpteenth baseball championship, is visible on the building front. Across the street an unusual combination of loiters suggest illegal activities. Passing by I pat my wallet. No one pays them or me any mind. This is San Francisco. One intersection over is Capp Street that ten years...
By Michael Stillman
The recent application of Amazon.com's "price parity" policy to European booksellers has resulted in a great outcry from those countries' dealers. The policy has been in effe...
By Bruce McKinney
Books are composed mostly of words, occasional numbers and infrequent images. The history of books on the Americana Exchange is the matter of description and the number of t...
By Tom McKinney
Last month, Mike Stillman wrote about the new Kobo eBook reader which Borders is now selling for $149. Last month, that price was cheaper than the competition, but the price ma...
By Susan Halas
"What a long strange trip it’s been...."
This year Bud Plant celebrates the 40th year of Bud's Art Books. That's forty years since 1970, when he started in the mail order bo...
By Michael Stillman
Maybe there's something in the water. England has become the site of two dramatic and unusual book theft cases. One involves the legendary "Tome Raider," who officially becam...
By Bruce McKinney
In a few weeks Bonhams will announce they are handling my second sale - The American Experience - 1626 - 1850, the second auction of books, manuscripts and ephemera from the co...
By Lee Kirk, The Prints The Paper -
www.kirksbooks.com
This was the first show I have done in 7 years due to family and personal health issues, eldercare, etc. Since it was the 5th year for ...
By Bruce McKinney
Susan Heller of Pages 4 Sages of Beachwood, Ohio is a young 75+ and looking to wrap up her four-decade career in the book business. As is the experience of most booksellers sh...
By Michael Stillman
Items in the books, manuscripts and ephemera field do not have to be antiquarian to bring in big money. Indeed, we are witnessing something of a changing of the guard in what...
By Tom McKinney
This month I'm writing a step-by-step guide to the AE premium service MatchMaker. If you're already a premium member and don't use the service, maybe this will make it less intim...
By Michael Stillman
When is a book more desirable after its covers have been torn from the pages? When are terms such as "foxed" and "faded" a positive selling feature? Welcome to the new world ...
Fourteen new catalogues are reviewed in Section Two this month. Travel and exploration are the subjects of catalogues from Peter Harrington and Gert Jan Bestebreurtje Rare Books. Autographs and man...
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