As we ring out another year, it is time to take one last look back at 2011 and check out the top sales in the field of books, manuscripts and ephemera. Every year, AE compiles a list of the top 500 prices paid at auction, and this time we find that, for all the financial turmoil in the world, the well-heeled collector remains strong as ever.
There was nothing this past year to match 2010's most expensive item, an elephant folio first edition of Audubon's Birds of America. That was the most expensive printed book ever sold, coming in at well over $11 million. However, in 2011, there were 11...
Even as we close out the Top 500 auction prices from the book world for 2011 (see article in this month's issue of AE Monthly), we may already have a preview of number 1 for 2012. Of course we don'...
Collectors collect what they know. Older collectors have known the classics, older fiction and history and collected these subjects with gusto. Their children, with ever emerging fresh values and...
Even as Amazon has begun to pacify “Main Street” retailers with their support for the Main Street Fairness Act concerning sales taxes (see article in this month's AE Monthly), the giant online book...
Two thousand and eleven was an interesting rather than good year in the books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera field. Median lot value made a three-year bottom in April, at $345 and has since stead...
A truly bizarre lawsuit has been initiated in the state of Nebraska against a bookseller on the grounds of a violation of that state's Privacy Act. The bookseller is not from Nebraska, but is noted...
On January 5th and 6th, 2012 Dirk Soulis Auctions is conducting the sale of the stock of Spivey’s Maps, Fine Art, Prints and Rare Books of Kansas City. This first of what is expected to be three e...
If the older generation of book sellers ever doubted a new era was at hand 2011 confirmed the new scheme of things was not only here, but here to stay.
The weather vane event was the demise of Bo...
Bob Emerson took flight this past August and I would be remiss in failing to note the event. After all, every satellite and Soyuz gets at least a nod. How then can a genuine star, rising in the h...
The redoubtable print makers, N. Currier and Currier Ives, successful New York printmakers from 1834 to 1907, had a pretty good year at auction in 2011. Of one hundred and thirty-six lots of thei...
Two internet behemoths, and two of the largest booksellers in the world, went at it in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee recently. The subject was the collection of out of state sales ...
One year after the horrific murder of a Salt Lake City bookseller, her family is still seeking answers. Most particularly, they are trying to find the person responsible for killing well-liked book...
We start the new year with a lucky 13 new catalogues up for review. A few of them target very specific niches. Peter Harrington is offering the Pat McInally Winnie-the-Pooh collection. Daniel Crouc...
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.