Rare Book Monthly Articles - November - 2017 Issue

Exiting the Bookseller Business

Exiting the Bookseller Business

  An Editor's Introduction by Bruce McKinney   New dealers are a healthy sign for the rare book field and often enough new men and women enter the trade, often having apprenticed with established dealers and found the process and the prospects appealing.  For retiring dealers the process is more somber for what began as a hopeful venture often turns out to be more difficult and complicated than was earlier envisioned.  Nevertheless, many weather the process and find success.   Marc Sena Carrel became a used and rare book dealer in 2003 and is wrapping up his bookselling enterprise in 2...

Used Bookstores Are Back: The Published Page - Large Bricks & Mortar Shop Opens Near Ft. Worth.

Used Bookstores Are Back: The Published Page - Large Bricks & Mortar Shop Opens Near Ft. Worth.

Move over Amazon, starting November 1st, Jim and Connye Hart open a big olden days style used bookstore in Cleburne, Texas outside of Fort Worth. When fully built out the Published Page expects to ...

One of the Earliest Printings of the Declaration of Independence to Be Sold in An Unexpected Location

One of the Earliest Printings of the Declaration of Independence to Be Sold in An Unexpected Location

A major piece of printed Americana will go up for sale on November 11. It is a very rare, very early, and very valuable printing of the Declaration of Independence. It was printed in New York on Ju...

William Reese:  Honored by the American Antiquarian Society

William Reese: Honored by the American Antiquarian Society

On October 27th Bill Reese received the Christopher Columbus Baldwin Award at the AAS Annual Meeting in Worcester.  He is only the fourth recipient in the 205 year history of the society.   All f...

AbeBooks' New Top 10 Highest Prices Range from the Classics to the Strange

AbeBooks' New Top 10 Highest Prices Range from the Classics to the Strange

AbeBooks has released their list of the Top 10 highest prices reached on their site for the third quarter of 2017, July-September. We find books noted for their content, others for their illustrati...

The Boston Book Fairs in November

The Boston Book Fairs in November

It is a right of passage that book collectors whose hearts are beating will cross the rivers, mountain ranges and fading purple loosestrife’d meadows to get to New England’s largest book fairs in B...

Northampton Book and Book Arts Fair December 2nd and 3rd

Northampton Book and Book Arts Fair December 2nd and 3rd

  News Release:  Northampton, Massachusetts – This American region’s leading used antiquarian booksellers and fine letterpress printers, book binders, paper makers, and artist book makers will be...

Nov. 4: Maps, Letters and More at Leland Little

Nov. 4: Maps, Letters and More at Leland Little

Leland Little Auctions, the house based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, offers to your discerning eyes this month a single-owner sale of approximately 590 lots. The sale opens with 130 lots of mat...

The Memoirs of the Sansons, A French History of Violence

The Memoirs of the Sansons, A French History of Violence

Sanson is a creepy name in the history of France, borne by a notorious dynasty of executioners. They operated in Paris from 1688 to 1847. So many broken bones, severed heads and spilled blood deser...

Doyle New York:  Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on November 7th

Doyle New York: Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on November 7th

On 7 November Doyle New York will hold an appealing sale of material that is both rare and unusual.  Two hundred and thirty-three lots will traverse the written, printed and photographic landscape ...

Shapero Rare Books Sells Half Interest in its Russian Books to Former Employee

Shapero Rare Books Sells Half Interest in its Russian Books to Former Employee

Scholium Group, the publicly traded company that owns Shapero Rare Books, recently announced the sale of approximately 50% of their Russian stock to PY Limited, a company controlled by former emplo...

Nov. 20: Rare Books at Ketterer Kunst in Hamburg

Nov. 20: Rare Books at Ketterer Kunst in Hamburg

This month, Hamburg-based auction house Ketterer Kunst is hosting a sale of Rare Books that features an interesting array of material. With atlases, manuscripts, photographs, and of course, books, ...

Nov. 21: Books, Manuscripts and Engravings at Il Ponte Casa d'Aste in Milan

Nov. 21: Books, Manuscripts and Engravings at Il Ponte Casa d'Aste in Milan

Il Ponte Casa d’Aste, based in Milan, is putting on an impressive sale on November 21st containing 253 lots of Books, Manuscripts and Engravings. This is a sale composed primarily of European mater...

Are Books a Bargain?

Are Books a Bargain?

Are books a bargain in the collectibles field? Prices for art have long been astronomical compared to even the greatest and most important of books or other examples of works on paper. It is not su...

A Busy November in Books for Sotheby's London

A Busy November in Books for Sotheby's London

It’s a busy November for Sotheby’s, and their London office is no exception. Three noteworthy sales may pique your interest: The Library of an English Bibliophile Part VII - November 7 Travel, ...

Dear Mrs. Trump – A Librarian's Snarky Attack on the First Lady and Dr. Seuss Not a Great Moment in Library Science

Dear Mrs. Trump – A Librarian's Snarky Attack on the First Lady and Dr. Seuss Not a Great Moment in Library Science

A Massachusetts librarian managed to deliver an embarrassing blow to what was presumably her cause, tolerance and racial justice, with one of the more inept public attacks you will ever see. Her ob...

eCatalogues:  the transition continues

eCatalogues: the transition continues

As the economics of rare book catalogues continues to decline many dealers have shifted from printed paper to electronic eCatalogues.  Here is a snapshot of the most recent fifty catalogues we have...

Eight New Bookseller Catalogues Reviewed

Eight New Bookseller Catalogues Reviewed

We have eight new catalogues up for review this month. Read 'Em Again Books features correspondence from the 18th and 19th century. The Pages of Yesteryear hasn't been in business since quite the 1...

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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