Rare Book Monthly Articles - July - 2015 Issue

If you want to have collectors . . .

If you want to have collectors . . .

If you want to have collectors of books manuscripts, maps and ephemera collecting today and into the future this community will have to have time, interest and money.  Education plays an important part as well but many collectors are self-educated so I don’t feel it’s an absolute requirement, in fact I think collecting is sometimes a compensation for having less education.  Taken as a group [or category] collectors are complex, many of them intensely interesting, a fair number of them over-the-top eccentrics.  They are also the bedrock of collecting in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephem...

Row 14B, Bay 3, Shelf 2:  A Most Incredible Story of a Missing $600,000 Print, the Police, FBI, a Resigning Library President, and Lost & Found at the Boston Public Library

Row 14B, Bay 3, Shelf 2: A Most Incredible Story of a Missing $600,000 Print, the Police, FBI, a Resigning Library President, and Lost & Found at the Boston Public Library

In the summer of 2014, some people at the Boston Public Library realized that a valuable print was missing. The missing item was Albrecht Dürer's Adam and Eve (some call it The Fall of Man), estima...

An Interesting Exposition in San Francisco:  ending on July 5th

An Interesting Exposition in San Francisco: ending on July 5th

A compelling show of Contemporary Bindings of Private Press Books is on display June 6th to July 5th at the San Francisco Center for the Book on the south side of the San Francisco at 375 Rhode Isl...

Forty Years Going: The Newtown Book Sale

Forty Years Going: The Newtown Book Sale

For forty years, the Newtown Book Sale has been an annual event taking place in Newtown, CT, where an increasingly larger amount of material has appeared for sale over the years. In 1975, it began ...

Pennsylvania Woman Arrested for Theft of Prints and Books Valued at Over $650,000

Pennsylvania Woman Arrested for Theft of Prints and Books Valued at Over $650,000

An arrest has been made in the case of a major theft of prints and books in Pennsylvania. This is not the typical case of library theft, or stealing from a collector. These prints and books were st...

Collecting the Culture Wars: LGBT, Pot, Race, and other Hot Button Issues

Collecting the Culture Wars: LGBT, Pot, Race, and other Hot Button Issues

The "culture wars" is a phrase that is bandied around a lot in the news. Current American battleground issues include legalized recreational drugs, the gender spectrum, sometimes abbreviated to LBG...

Opportunities for One Lot Collectors

Opportunities for One Lot Collectors

Collecting can take years but in a few cases just a few minutes.  Those who treasure the hunt need not read further for if you want a day by day, month by month accumulation of objects purchased at...

Two More Stolen Books Returned to the Swedish National Library

Two More Stolen Books Returned to the Swedish National Library

Two more books, discovered missing from the National Library of Sweden over a decade ago, made their way back home this past month. They are among at least 56 old and valuable books taken from that...

Brunk Auctions Sale: July 16-18

Brunk Auctions Sale: July 16-18

Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Brunk Auctions has been offering sales of fine and decorative art for over thirty years. Their upcoming sale, running from Thursday, July 16th to Saturday, July ...

Commodore and the Patagonians - The Tallest Lie

Commodore and the Patagonians - The Tallest Lie

In 1767, a peculiar book entitled Voyage Autour du Monde fait en 1764 1765 (Paris, 1767) reached the shores of France. This first edition of Commodore Byron’s voyage around the world shut the mout...

31st Annual Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair Set for July 31-Aug. 1

31st Annual Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair Set for July 31-Aug. 1

The 31st annual Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, July 31 and August 1 in Denver this year. On Friday, doors will open at 2:00 and stay open until 8:00. On Sa...

Dreweatts Bloomsbury offers Western Manuscripts & Miniatures on July 8th

Dreweatts Bloomsbury offers Western Manuscripts & Miniatures on July 8th

Dr. Timothy Bolton, late of Sotheby’s and now head of Western Manuscripts Miniatures at Dreweatts Bloomsbury is conducting his first sale since joining the firm.  It is an auspicious beginning.  T...

Eight New Bookseller Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Eight New Bookseller Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we received eight new catalogues to review. This time, most could be described as varieties or miscellanies, rather than the highly focused subjects we often see with booksellers' catalo...

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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