Rare Book Monthly Articles - January - 2015 Issue

The AE Top 500 Prices Paid at Auction in 2014

The AE Top 500 Prices Paid at Auction in 2014

Once again a year has come to an end, meaning it is time to look back at the top 500 prices paid at auction in 2014 in the field of books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera (see end of article for a description of what is included). Once again, there was one eight-digit item at the top that far exceeded anything else. Last year, the Bay Psalm Book went for more than double the second highest priced item. This year, it was more than triple.   More telling about the overall health of the upper end of the market was the price at #500. This year, the low end of the top 500 was more than $10,000 ...

Mystery Buyer at Doyle New York was none other than…

Mystery Buyer at Doyle New York was none other than…

Bill Reese, the leading rare bookseller in the United States over the past quarter century, demonstrated convincingly at the November 24th Doyle New York sale why he ranks at the top of his field. ...

Looking Ahead

Looking Ahead

Paul Krugman in his book The Conscience of a Liberal, published in 2007, describes the economic history of America since the Civil War as a succession of changing perspectives on taxation. This led...

AbeBooks Announces Their List of the 50 Most Expensive Books Sold on Their Site in 2014

AbeBooks Announces Their List of the 50 Most Expensive Books Sold on Their Site in 2014

Abebooks.com has released its list of the 50 most expensive sales on its website during 2014. We all know that some very high prices are paid on occasion for books, but through a click on a website...

Seeking Collectible Editions from a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Seeking Collectible Editions from a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

The first movie begins with a screen crawl in medias res with Episode IV and in a mythical time and place, classically the locus for the shaman’s struggle for self-realization, growth and unificati...

Is This Writer's Archive Too Valuable to Mention Its Price?

Is This Writer's Archive Too Valuable to Mention Its Price?

Has the value of archives of notable writers become so great that buyers no longer dare speak their cost, for fear of driving up future prices to even more outrageous levels? It would seem so, at l...

Book Selling: Some Highs and Lows of 2014

Book Selling: Some Highs and Lows of 2014

There is some strong anecdotal evidence that for some people in the antiquarian book trade 2014 was a good year.   For Bruce McKinney, 68, Americana Exchange publisher in San Francisco, this was ...

What Can a Life of Book Theft Lead to Next?

What Can a Life of Book Theft Lead to Next?

They say that bad things like cigarettes and alcohol can lead to habits much worse, like hard drugs. How about book theft – can that lead to something even more extreme? Here is a strange case that...

Madame Deshoulières - The Melancholic Nature of Man

Madame Deshoulières - The Melancholic Nature of Man

Women, states a critic, carry their natural loquacity, their abundant, restless and unquenchable verbosity in everything they arrogantly undertake to say, and when infatuated with the bel-esprit, t...

An Unusual Archeological Dig for Old Books

An Unusual Archeological Dig for Old Books

An unusual archeological dig is taking in place in Glasgow, Scotland, for old books. An archeological search for books makes one think they are looking for some ancient stone tablets or cave drawin...

A New Record Price Set for a Photograph - $6.5 Million

A New Record Price Set for a Photograph - $6.5 Million

A record price has apparently been paid for a photograph – a whopping $6.5 million. We say “apparently” as it was a private sale, and it is impossible to know for certain whether there has been a l...

Newly Discovered Oscar Wilde Manuscripts to go on Display at the Rosenbach

Newly Discovered Oscar Wilde Manuscripts to go on Display at the Rosenbach

The Rosenbach will be exhibiting some newly discovered works of Irish author-playwright-poet Oscar Wilde opening on January 23. Now officially the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the...

Amazon Secures Exclusive Control of .Book Domain Names

Amazon Secures Exclusive Control of .Book Domain Names

There is a new domain name suffix coming to an internet connection near you soon that may be of great interest to those in the book trade, or those who just like books a lot. That domain root is .b...

Fourteen New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Fourteen New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

We begin the new year with 14 new booksellers' catalogues to review. Whitmore Rare Books has created a catalogue of major literary works. The Kelmscott Bookshop features fine presses and 19th centu...

Rare Book Monthly

  • DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025 DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    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 | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025 Freeman’s | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    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.
  • Sotheby’sBooks, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to ModernNow through July 10, 2025 Sotheby’sBooks, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to ModernNow through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    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.
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