Rare Book Monthly Articles - February - 2012 Issue

Las Vegas:  A Potemkin Village

Las Vegas:  A Potemkin Village

On the crowded planes fired from distant places, rifle shots of people determined to have fun and heading for the Las Vegas bulls eye - McCarran Airport, are warming up in expectation of becoming overheated once they reach the strip.  The flights are the dead spot that precedes the hoped for euphoria.  Whether the draw is the gambling, the girls or adventure, everyone has a reason for going, an objective.   Even the prissy sorts that will soon parade their “I’m not doing this or that” are part of the tapestry.  Howard Hughes, it turns out, had a good eye for depravity and we, today’s recrui...

Looking Back at Book Prices in 2011

Looking Back at Book Prices in 2011

The last few years have been economically trying for just about everyone, and book selling certainly hasn't been immune. While precisely what is happening to dealers is impossible to know (most don...

Peter Howard - first auction of his stock

Peter Howard - first auction of his stock

The second passing of Peter Howard, the selling of his remaining collections and stock begins this month with Bonhams sale on the 12th of 271 items culled from inventory.  The sale is scheduled to ...

AbeBooks Top Ten for 2011 Shows Prices Are Rising on the Book Listing Site

AbeBooks Top Ten for 2011 Shows Prices Are Rising on the Book Listing Site

AbeBooks has released their list of the Top 10 highest price paid for books on their website, and the list may be more telling for what prices were paid than what is on it. AbeBooks, even as the le...

B-corps for Booksellers? New structure has some obvious and not so obvious advantages

B-corps for Booksellers? New structure has some obvious and not so obvious advantages

AE readers first learned about B (for benefits) corporations in 2010 when we visited the warehouse facilities of Better World Books of Mishawaka, Indiana. The rapidly expanding high volume booksell...

San Francisco Book and Paper Fair February 4-5

San Francisco Book and Paper Fair February 4-5

The San Francisco Book and Paper Fair, featuring 184 exhibitors, will be held in San Francisco at the Concourse Exhibition Center on Saturday and Sunday February 4th and 5th.  The fair brings toget...

The ABAA Antiquarian Book Fair

The ABAA Antiquarian Book Fair

The 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair will be held Friday February 10th through Sunday the 12th at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California.  Exhibitors are members ...

Austin Book and Paper Show January 2013

The Austin Book, Paper and Photo Show was held at the Norris Conference Center in Austin, Texas January 14 and 15. The event was sponsored by the Texas Bookseller's Association and Heritage Auction...

Audubon's Birds of America Takes in $7.9 million at Auction

Audubon's Birds of America Takes in $7.9 million at Auction

The latest sale of “the most expensive book in the world” was concluded on January 20. At Christie's in New York, a double-elephant folio first edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America, the...

Doug Johns Re-Locates to Albuquerque

Doug Johns Re-Locates to Albuquerque

Doug Johns, long of San Francisco and for many years involved in the sale of books, maps, manuscripts, ephemera and historical artifacts has, with his wife Celeste, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico...

Heritage - A sale for Bibliophiles

Heritage - A sale for Bibliophiles

Heritage Rare Book Auctions in Beverly Hills and Dallas is offering a broad selection of collectible works on paper on February 8th.  The emphasis is on collectible.  The sales will be conducted in...

Borders is Buried, but Kobo Lives On

Borders is Buried, but Kobo Lives On

The final significant steps in the dismemberment and burial of Borders have played out, and we now know how many bones are left to be picked over by creditors. Not many, at least if you are an unse...

Bernice Bornstein sells the Boston Book Fair to Marvin Getman

Bernice Bornstein sells the Boston Book Fair to Marvin Getman

Bornstein Shows, for many years a leading east coast trade show promoter for the works on paper field, has sold the very popular “Boston Book, Print and Ephemera Show” to Marvin Getman and the Impa...

Legendary Parisian Bookseller George Whitman Had Died

Legendary Parisian Bookseller George Whitman Had Died

To last in the book selling field for a long time, you have to have an at least workable business model, and a dedication to the field of books. To last in the field a very long time, you also need...

Fifteen New Catalogues Under Review

Fifteen New Catalogues Under Review

This month we review fifteen new bookseller catalogues. The William Reese Company offers a collection of works with a notable provenance. Sophie Schneideman Rare Books presents a selection of books...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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
  • 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

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