Rare Book Monthly Articles - September - 2011 Issue

The Fall Approaches

The Fall Approaches

Heading into fall buyers and sellers will be meeting head one in a series of auctions that will illuminate the strength and direction of the market.  A great deal is at stake.  As has been the case all year auction houses are handling increasing volume while recently experiencing a marginally lower percentage of completed sales [see charts].  A reasonable conclusion is that reserves are bit higher than buyers are comfortable to reach.  The why is less certain.  One interpretation is that the market, while orderly, is having trouble absorbing increasing volume.  Another is that the economy i...

Sometimes A Great Notion - An Intriguing Auction

Sometimes A Great Notion - An Intriguing Auction

Swann, the New York auctioneers, are holding the first of three scheduled sales of material from the collection of Eric Caren, the life-long bibliophile.  The title of the sale is “How History Unfo...

Using Reference Works Can Help Enhance Value

Using Reference Works Can Help Enhance Value

Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books (ABAA) in Alameda, CA is well known in the book world as a dealer in Dickens and a specialist in other rare and collectible authors writing in English. He also has a ...

AE Makes It Easy to Search for Book Auction Listings

AE Makes It Easy to Search for Book Auction Listings

The fall book auction season will be starting very soon now. Fall is traditionally the busiest time of the year for auctions. After Labor Day in the U.S., almost everyone has returned home from the...

Trifecta in Beverly Hills

Trifecta in Beverly Hills

Heritage Auctions is holding three auctions in Beverly Hills in mid-September and each of them will be of interest to those who covet valuable paper: On Monday, September 12th The Jerry Weist Coll...

eCatalogues:  Coming to a Computer Near You

eCatalogues:  Coming to a Computer Near You

This month there are nine eCatalogues from AE Members.  If you are at least a research member you can post catalogues as you issue them and we are more and more closely linking them to AE Monthly. ...

It's Been a Tough Month for Large Book Retailers

It's Been a Tough Month for Large Book Retailers

This has not been a good month for large, chain bookstores, especially so for their investors. Physical retailing has been battling online selling for a decade, and physical books have been battlin...

Perspective on Nine Years

Perspective on Nine Years

AE is celebrating its 9th birthday this September 3rd and it seems like only yesterday that we began.  Many of our original members are members still, a testament to their patience and our unending...

Bookseller Pleads Guilty to Income Tax Evasion

Bookseller Pleads Guilty to Income Tax Evasion

Why? It's a question John J. O'Brien must have asked himself a thousand times. When you make millions of dollars, there are so many things you can do with your money. One of those is to go into the...

Dead Men Tell Tales

Dead Men Tell Tales

In fact they won’t shut up and apparently also do not die.  Lest you assume from the headline that death has been conquered the answer in one particular case is alleged to be stayed but not stopped...

St. Paul Woman Sentenced for Stealing 1,400 Books

St. Paul Woman Sentenced for Stealing 1,400 Books

A love of books is a wonderful thing. It can lead one to knowledge, to an appreciation of all things. Books make us better people. Then there is Amanda Cortright. Her love of books led her down the...

George Inness:  Picture Perfect

George Inness:  Picture Perfect

I recently purchased a painting on eBay for $1,182.  It’s small and faintly familiar.  The artist is George Inness and the subject appears to be the Catskills, possibly looking south.  The underlyi...

Cursive Suffers Another Deadly Blow

Cursive Suffers Another Deadly Blow

There is one less subject schoolchildren in Indiana will have to master when school reopens this fall - cursive. For younger readers unfamiliar with that term, it has nothing to do with bad languag...

Nine Catalogues Reviewed in Section 2

Nine Catalogues Reviewed in Section 2

This month we review nine new booksellers' catalogues. Sotheran's boasts a catalogue few can match - a 250th anniversary catalogue with at least one entry for each of the past 250 years. Hordern Ho...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s: William Shakespeare.
    The Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare, 1960. 7,210 USD
    Sotheby’s: Charles Dickens.
    A Christmas Carol, First Edition, 1843. 17,500 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Golding.
    Lord of the Flies, First Edition, 1954. 5,400 USD
    Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s: Lewis Carroll.
    Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Inscribed First Edition, 1872. 25,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: J.R.R. Tolkien.
    The Hobbit, First Edition, 1937. 12,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: John Milton.
    Paradise Lost, 1759. 5,400 USD

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