Rare Book Monthly Articles - May - 2016 Issue

The New York Book Fair:  Great Fun

The New York Book Fair: Great Fun

  One of the great pleasures of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair in New York every April is its certainty.  Life has its ups and downs but somehow each April the leading dealers, institutions and collectors find a way to get past life’s debris to rally around the material on which the field thrives; rare, beautiful and unusual works on paper.  In some years events in the real world crowd out the joy and pleasure in the Park Avenue Armory, in others the skies are clear, the daffodils are out, and smiles are everywhere.  The 2016 NYABF goes into the records as a very strong event, as David...

An Open Letter to the Trustees of the Armory

An Open Letter to the Trustees of the Armory

Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue New York, New York 10065   Dear Ms. Robertson;   Concerning the Armory and its relationship to the prin...

A Shakespeare First Folio, Long Lost, Is Found

A Shakespeare First Folio, Long Lost, Is Found

A long lost copy of Shakespeare's First Folio has been discovered, in just the sort of place you would most likely expect to find one – in the forgotten corner of a Scottish castle on the Isle of B...

Winnie the Pooh celebrates 90th Anniversary in 2016

Winnie the Pooh celebrates 90th Anniversary in 2016

"Winnie-the-Pooh," (a bear of very little brain) turns 90 this year. The fictional English bear and other characters created by A.A. Milne first appeared in print in 1926 in a small volume that was...

A Foundation and a Museum Battle Over Maurice Sendak's Estate

A Foundation and a Museum Battle Over Maurice Sendak's Estate

The dispute over the estate of children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak has turned from ugly to downright personal, according to an article recently published by the Philadelphia Inqui...

British Bookseller Brutally Murdered

British Bookseller Brutally Murdered

A British bookseller was brutally murdered in his Oxford home early last month. Adrian Greenwood, who was also a historian, antique seller, and writer, was found dead in the hallway of his home by ...

Cartouche, or The Thieves of the 5th Republic

Cartouche, or The Thieves of the 5th Republic

The economic crisis, the Panama Papers affair, the Protection of trade secrets law and the many financial scandals lately revealed in France have weakened the current 5th Republic and generated a g...

May 25: Landmark Abolitionist Material and Americana at Sotheby's New York

May 25: Landmark Abolitionist Material and Americana at Sotheby's New York

It's not often the autographs of nearly a quarter of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence are available in a single sale. Implausibly, this fact isn't even the biggest story of said s...

The London Antiquarian Book Fair:  Live at Olympia

The London Antiquarian Book Fair: Live at Olympia

What New York is to the new world London is to the old.  In May, Thursday -Saturday the 26th to the 28th, 180 dealers from the United Kingdom and beyond will meet again at the National convention h...

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book & Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book & Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary. The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book and Paper Arts Fair, presented by the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the U...

Tenth Annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair Set for June 3-4

Tenth Annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair Set for June 3-4

The tenth annual Rose City Book Paper Fair has been scheduled for Friday, June 3, and Saturday, June 4 this year. The City of Roses is Portland, Oregon, and every spring booksellers and collectors...

Yet Another Book Theft – This Time $200,000 Worth of Comics

Yet Another Book Theft – This Time $200,000 Worth of Comics

Another month, another book theft. The stories are distressingly repetitive. This month it is comic books, the books we collected as kids and our mothers threw away. They didn't understand. Actuall...

Laws of Baseball

Laws of Baseball

Recently SCP Auctions, who specialize in sports memorabilia, sold “Laws of Base Ball” for $3.26 million.  It’s a great price although 25% less than the same house sold, in 2012, a Babe Ruth 1920 je...

Its All in the Name

Its All in the Name

The answer to struggling booksellers' sales issues is so simple and obvious it is a wonder so few have picked up on this before. The answer comes to us from Melbourne, Australia, where high rents o...

17 Booksellers' Catalogues Reviewed This Month

17 Booksellers' Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we have 17 book catalogues to review. A wide range of subjects for collectors are covered by these selections. Dr. Jorn Gunther Rare Books offers a spectacular collection of early bibles...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Johnson (C.). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates, 1724. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Ordonez de Cevallos (Pedro). Viage del Mundo, 1st edition, Madrid: Luis Sanchez, 1614. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: North America. Merian (Matthaus), Virginia..., 1627 or later. £1,500-2,500
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: World. Waldseemuller (Martin), Tabula Nova Totius Orbis, Vienne: 1541. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Erasmus (Desiderius). The ... paraphrase of Erasmus... 2 volumes, 1st edition, 1549. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Bible [English]. [The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament, 1562]. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Smith (Lucy). Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, 1st edition, 1853. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Derain (Andre). Pantagruel, signed limited edition, Albert Skira, 1943. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Austen (Jane). Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by Hugh Thomson, Large Paper edition, 1894. £1,500-2,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Ellison (Ralph). Invisible Man, 1st edition, New York: Random House, 1952. £200-300
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Taschen Collector's Edition. Annie Leibovitz, limited edition, 2014. £1,000-1,500
  • Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 1: Bob Dylan, his high school classmate's yearbook with his senior portrait, signed and inscribed to her, 1959. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 4: Various entertainers, Group of 30 items, signed or inscribed, various dates. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 27: John Adams, Autograph Letter Signed to Benjamin Rush introducing Archibald Redford, Paris, 1783. $35,000 to $50,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 36: Robert Gould Shaw, Autograph Letter Signed to his father from Camp Andrew, Boston, 1861. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 53: Martin Luther King Jr., Time magazine cover, signed and inscribed "Best Wishes," 1957. $5,000 to $7,500.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 127: Paul Gauguin, Autograph Letter regarding payment for paintings, with woodcut letterhead, 1900. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 169: Suck: First European Sex Paper, complete group of eight issues, 1969-1974. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 173: Black Panthers, The Racist Dog Policemen Must Withdraw Immediately From Our Communities, poster, 1969. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 187: Marc Attali & Jacques Delfau, Les Erotiques du Regard, first edition, Paris, 1968. $300 to $500.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 213: Andy Warhol, Warhol's Index Book, first printing, New York, 1967. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 215: Cookie Mueller, Archive of 17 items, including 4 items inscribed and signed. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 249: Jamie Reid, The Ten Lessons / The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle; Sex Pistols, chromogenic print with collage, signed, circa 1980. $20,000 to $30,000.
  • 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
  • Bonhams, Apr. 8: First report outside of the colonies of the American Revolution, from American accounts. Printed broadsheet, The London Evening-Post, May 30, 1775. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce, James. The earliest typescript pages from Finnegans Wake ever to appear at auction, annotated by Joyce, 1923. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce's Ulysses, 1923, one of only seven copies known, printed to replace copies destroyed in customs. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER'S COPY, INSCRIBED. Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento, 1667. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Bernoulli's Ars conjectandi, 1713. "... first significant book on probability theory." $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Aristotle's Politica. Oeconomica. 1469. The first printed work on political economy. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: John Graunt's Natural and political observations...., 1662. The first printed work of epidemiology and demographics. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: William Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786. The first work to pictorially represent information in graphics. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Anson's A Voyage Round the World, 1748. THE J.R. ABBEY-LORD WARDINGTON COPY, BOUND BY JOHN BRINDLEY. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: La Perouse's Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde..., 1797. LARGE FINE COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Francesca Woodman's Some Disordered Interior Geometries, 1981. Untrimmed publisher's proof sheets. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Charles Schulz original 8-panel Peanuts Sunday comic strip, 1992, pen and ink over pencil, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy as a psychiatrist. $20,000 - $30,000

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