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...
Koller, Mar. 26: Wit, Frederick de. Atlas. Amsterdam, de Wit, [1680]. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
Koller, Mar. 26: Merian, Maria Sibylla. Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumennahrung. Nürnberg, 1679; Frankfurt a. M. und Leipzig, 1683. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
Koller, Mar. 26: GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON. Faust. Ein Fragment. Von Goethe. Ächte Ausgabe. Leipzig, G. J. Göschen, 1790. CHF 7,000 to 10,000
Koller, Mar. 26: Hieronymus. [Das hochwirdig leben der außerwoelten freünde gotes der heiligen altuaeter]. Augsburg, Johann Schönsperger d. Ä., 9. Juni 1497. CHF 40,000 to 60,000.
Koller, Mar. 26: BIBLIA GERMANICA - Neunte deutsche Bibel. Nürnberg, A. Koberger, 17. Feb. 1483. CHF 40,000 to 60,000
Koller, Mar. 26: HORAE B.M.V. - Stundenbuch. Lateinische Handschrift auf Pergament, Kalendarium französisch. Nordfrankreich (Rouen?). CHF 25,000 to 40,000
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
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
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 7: Thomas Fisher, The Negro's Memorial or Abolitionist's Catechism, London, 1825. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 78: Victor H. Green, The Negro Travelers' Green Book, New York, 1958. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 99: Rosa Parks, Hand-written recollection of her first meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., autograph manuscript, Detroit, c. 1990s. $30,000 to $40,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 154: Frederick Douglass, Autograph statement on voting rights, signed manuscript, 1866. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 164: W.E.B. Du Bois, What the Negro Has Done for the United States and Texas, Washington, circa 1936. $3,000 to $4,000.
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 263: Susan Paul, Memoir of James Jackson, Boston, 1835. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 267: Langston Hughes, Gypsy Ballads, signed translation of García Lorca's poetry, Madrid, 1937. $1,500 to $2,500.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 274: Malcolm X, Collection from Alex Haley's estate, 38 items, 1963-1971. $4,000 to $6,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 367: Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, Auburn, NY, 1853. $2,500 to $3,500.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 402: Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, Xenia, OH, 1892. $2,000 to $3,000.