Rare Book Monthly Articles - January - 2012 Issue

AE Top 500 Book Auction List for 2011

AE Top 500 Book Auction List for 2011

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...

Is Top Book Auction Price for 2012 about to be Revealed?

Is Top Book Auction Price for 2012 about to be Revealed?

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'...

On a Soapbox

On a Soapbox

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...

Amazon Again Angers Main Street with Price Comparison Offer in Their Competitors' Own Stores

Amazon Again Angers Main Street with Price Comparison Offer in Their Competitors' Own Stores

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...

The Results are In and the Auction Charts Updated

The Results are In and the Auction Charts Updated

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...

Is Mentioning a Book's Provenance a Legally Actionable Invasion of Privacy?

Is Mentioning a Book's Provenance a Legally Actionable Invasion of Privacy?

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...

Spivey's to Be Liquidated Beginning on January 5th

Spivey's to Be Liquidated Beginning on January 5th

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...

2011 – No Turning Back

2011 – No Turning Back

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, 90

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...

A Good Year for N. Currier and Currier & Ives

A Good Year for N. Currier and Currier & Ives

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...

Internet Giants Amazon and eBay in a Tax War

Internet Giants Amazon and eBay in a Tax War

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 Later, Family Still Seeks Answer to Bookseller's Murder

One Year Later, Family Still Seeks Answer to Bookseller's Murder

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...

13 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

13 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

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...

Rare Book Monthly

  • High Bids Win
    Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines
    and Machine Manuals
    December 24 to January 9
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Ellis Smith Prints unsigned. 20” by 16”.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: United typothetae of America presidents. Pictures of 37 UTA presidents 46th annual convention United typothetae of America Cincinnati 1932.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec signed Paper Impressionism Art Prints. MayMilton 9 1/2” by 13” Reine de Joie 9 1/2” by 13”.
    High Bids Win
    Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines
    and Machine Manuals
    December 24 to January 9
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Aberle’ Ballet editions. 108th triumph, American season spring and summer 1944.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Puss ‘n Boots. 1994 Charles Perrult All four are signed by Andreas Deja
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Specimen book of type faces. Job composition department, Philadelphia gazette publishing company .
    High Bids Win
    Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines
    and Machine Manuals
    December 24 to January 9
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: An exhibit of printed books, Bridwell library.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur Court By Mark Twain 1889.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: 1963 Philadelphia Eagles official program.
    High Bids Win
    Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines
    and Machine Manuals
    December 24 to January 9
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: 8 - Esquire the magazine for men 1954.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: The American printer, July 1910.
    High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Leaves of grass 1855 by Walt Whitman.
  • RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
  • Case Antiques
    2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction
    January 25-26, 2025
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: 1861 Civil War Personal Flag. $12,000 to $14,000.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Armory Show 1913 Exhibition Poster. $8,000 to $9,000.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Abraham Lincoln Signed Appointment, 1863. $4,000 to $5,000.
    Case Antiques
    2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction
    January 25-26, 2025
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Cormac McCarthy, The Orchard Keeper, 1st Edition, Signed. $3,800 to $4,200.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, 1st Edition, Signed. $3,200 to $3,400.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Winston Churchill & Bernard Baruch Signed Letters Plus Photo. $1,400 to $1,600.
    Case Antiques
    2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction
    January 25-26, 2025
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Mississippi Civil War Ambrotype, Dr. Bisland Shields with Saber and Hat. $1,400 to $1,600.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Custom 19th C. Lord Byron Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 4 Vols w/ Over 350 Prints Incl. Ex-Joshua Reynolds. $1,200 to $1,400.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Four NASA Lunar Orbiter Survey Photos, 1966; Maestlin G Crater; Apollo. $600 to $700.
    Case Antiques
    2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction
    January 25-26, 2025
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Three Margaret Mitchell Signed Books; Association Copies. $1,000 to $1,200.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Jimmie Rodgers Signed & Dated Photograph plus Record, Framed. $1,000 to $1,200.
    Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Edward VIII Signed Letter Autograph. $500 to $600.
  • 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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