Rare Book Monthly Articles - September - 2015 Issue

Changing Valuations

Changing Valuations

Over the past year we have seen substantial changes in auction outcomes as expressed in US dollars.  Auctions of course are priced in local currencies, the dollar, pound [-5%] and euro [-12.5] predominate but there are also sales in Mexican pesos, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars [-27.5% ] Swiss francs and occasionally a few others.  We always convert to dollars to make comparison easier.  This said, this past year has seen dramatic shifts in currency values that are affecting the overall market by creating larger differences in outcome by region.   Of course, in a perfect world, pric...

Breaking Down Borders:  London Bookseller Peter Harrington Reaches Into the American Market

Breaking Down Borders: London Bookseller Peter Harrington Reaches Into the American Market

The advent of the internet twenty years ago changed the centuries-old bookselling process virtually overnight. Books had been sold locally by a local book shop going back to antiquity, when they we...

Susan Heller:  The Road to Retirement with a Detour

Susan Heller: The Road to Retirement with a Detour

Introduction by Bruce McKinney   Some people have the book bug and Susan is one of them.  She had been a book dealer for some fifty years.  Over those years she has raised children, built a busin...

The Auction Season Begins – Here's How to Search Them All

The Auction Season Begins – Here's How to Search Them All

Fall is almost upon us, and this is the busiest time of year for auctions in the books and paper field. Over the next four months, we can expect to match or exceed last year's total of 165,000 lots...

Gossiping in Montignac-Lascaux - Is the only summer auction in France worth attending?

Gossiping in Montignac-Lascaux - Is the only summer auction in France worth attending?

August is the dead period for old books. Drouot closes its doors by mid-July and other websites like interenchères.com only list one auction sale in France for the period, the Galatau Pastaud's, wh...

Libraries Morph to Homeless Shelters

Libraries Morph to Homeless Shelters

Libraries have always attracted a certain number of people who just want to come in out of the rain, use the bathroom or snooze away the day in the cool reading room. But a review of recent media c...

Brooklyn Books Art Photos & Design a Two Day Affair September 19-20

Brooklyn Books Art Photos & Design a Two Day Affair September 19-20

This September Impact Events Group of Lexington, Massachusetts is producing a weekend fair in Brooklyn on September 18th and 19th.  The venue is the Brooklyn Expo Center.  It is a new show and alre...

Annual Labor Day Weekend Mark Twain Library Fair in Redding Connecticut, Boxborough Paper Fair Set This Month

Annual Labor Day Weekend Mark Twain Library Fair in Redding Connecticut, Boxborough Paper Fair Set This Month

A pair of well-established book and paper fairs are scheduled for this month in New England. There is no better time to get out and travel New England than late summer when the weather is neither t...

PBA Moves Uptown

PBA Moves Uptown

  As the population in San Francisco increases, new buildings are being wedged into the available space.  So too these buildings are taller and their rents higher.  Internet madness has fully take...

Old World Auctions: Maps, Maps, Maps from September 2nd to the 16th

Old World Auctions: Maps, Maps, Maps from September 2nd to the 16th

Old World Auctions, the online-only auction house specializing in cartographic material, is hosting their 154th auction this month, and as is usual for them, the estimates are conservative and the ...

Thirteen and Counting

Thirteen and Counting

Thirteen years ago, on September 3rd, the Americana Exchange was launched into a world of printed materials that liked things the way they were.  Some few, the founders and 40 paid members, mostly ...

In The News:  A Couple of Libraries Struggle with Book Problems

In The News: A Couple of Libraries Struggle with Book Problems

On September 3, 2013, the Library of Birmingham (England) opened to much fanfare. It is a spectacular building. Nearly 2 ½ million people visited this architectural wonder last year. Built at a cos...

Eleven New Book Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Eleven New Book Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we have 11 new catalogues under review. Back of Beyond Books celebrates their 25th anniversary with their largest catalogue ever. For W. C. Baker Books and Ephemera, it's a beginning - c...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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

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