The impulse is strong, but the well-worn paths to book collecting, thinned by increasing rarity and higher prices, have effectively closed off the building of significant book collections for the 99% who love books but lack the unlimited resources needed to pursue the best material. For them other ways to build interesting collections are required and the evolving market is providing opportunities.
In its time the great material that circulated in the 19th century was broadly accessible and often unappreciated. Sellers of used and old books in the 1830s routinely handled rare and importa...
Americana Exchange publisher Bruce McKinney announced a free trial subscription for library personnel is now available on request. He said that the offer is good through September 2, 2012, the date...
It never rains in southern California. That's how the song goes and that's the way it was in Pasadena, site of the Rose Bowl Parade and the Rose Bowl two months ago and the ABAA Antiquarian Book F...
The San Francisco Book and Paper Fair held center stage in northern California over the first weekend in February. The fair, an every other year opportunity when the ABAA Fair goes to Southern Cal...
There are many paths to becoming a book collector, but only a few to collecting at the highest level. One of those is to be born to a wealthy family. Carter Burden was such a man. He was a great-gr...
The American Southeast will soon have its own book auction house with the opening of Addison Sarova. Their first auction will be held later this month. The auctions will be held in historic Macon,...
We recently hired a new employee to enter backlogged books into our catalog. This is the bottleneck that all Web-based booksellers face: we buy like there is no tomorrow, but then the real work of ...
When you need to copy something down, you probably do just that. You grab a piece of paper or a notebook and you write it down, verbatim or shorthand. Today, many people are carrying handheld devic...
Dates have been set for the 55th annual London International Antiquarian Book Fair. It will run from Thursday, May 24, through Friday, May 26. This year, the fair will be moving to new and larger q...
At the book fairs on the American West Coast this past month the English were out in force. Other European countries were represented but the English presence was exceptional. It seems the countr...
The second auction of material from the collection of Eric Caren is scheduled to take place at Swann Galleries in New York on March 15. Mr. Caren is the notable collector who used a broad-based bru...
The electronic book and publishing world is anxiously watching legal actions that may affect the profitability of this form of an over 500-year-old business. Allegations have been raised by private...
Sometime around Christmas of 1905, young Harry Widener walked into the rooms of the great 20th century bookseller, Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach. Widener was just a man of 20 at the time, a junior at Harvar...
The all-day third annual Sacramento Antiquarian Spring Book Fair will be held in Sacramento, California at the Scottish Rite Temple on March 24th. The hours are 9:45 am to 5:00 pm. Dealers from a...
For those who sell (or buy) books, and are fascinated by others' adventures in the book trade, a new title was recently published by the English bookseller David Batterham. Though Mr. Batterham obv...
This month we have 16 new bookseller catalogues under review. Fine literary works are available from Whitmore Rare Books and BB Rare Books. Charles Dickens is the featured writer at Maggs Bros. Eng...
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
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
![Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/dc0b1dc0-f7c8-40b6-a5a6-870689484c07.jpg "<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€")
