I’ve known for many years that book collecting, if it was ever only books, is rarely books alone today. Book collecting was once a huge field that required decades of experience. Today informational databases approach Einstein levels of volume and complexity providing clear pictures of rarity and value while selling databases such as Abe Books and Biblio show enormous availability. The word rare has always been a general term but the best databases today show it item by item, selling sites to tell you how many are available and RBH to tell you what the market is saying it’s worth.
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Over the past 15 years listing books on line has moved beyond the future into something embedded, like wallpaper, in the unfolding everyday reality of old and rare books. Superlatives were common ...
A settlement has been reached in a smuggling case involving approximately 5,500 items from antiquity, some of the earliest "books" created, cuneiform tablets from the "cradle of civilization," toda...
This month, Rare Book Hub guest writer, Maureen E. Mulvihill, has written a useful piece on continuing strong values in Frances Burney (her books, manuscripts, associated visual art). Burney, a pop...
This is the month where the earliest "books" - ancient clay tablets – make their way into the news, legal news in particular. Not only was a settlement reached in the Hobby Lobby case (see article ...
The chance to visit New York City this past month reminded me anew that, for book collectors and those who do historical research both the New York Public Library and the New York Historical Societ...
As their 2016-2017 auction season comes to a close, Swann Auction Galleries is going out with a bang. Taking place tomorrow (from the time of this Rare Book Monthly publishing), August 2nd at 10:30...
A three-story circular library has been proposed to house the collection of one of the more unusual book collectors you will ever find. His name is David Walsh, and he built his fortune the way vir...
Case Antiques, the Knoxville, Tennessee based auction house has since 2015 included their relevant auction records in Rare Book Hub’s Transaction History database. The category of collectible works...
You can kind of feel it, the disconcerting energy of anxiety. It’s a different kind of thing; somehow tapping into our primordial instincts. There’s a sense of risk in some quarters of America to...
Like many “generous aristocrats1”, the well-born Marquis de Chastellux went to America in 1780 to fight on the side of the insurgents during the War of Independence (1775-1783). There he became acq...
It was a testament to just how crazy much money collectors will spend on their passion. Sadly, it was not a testament to what people will spend on books, which is much more reasonable (that is, les...
It’s August and in the Northern Hemisphere it’s Summer. Time for a little bookish RR.
With that in mind here are some large and small collections displayed online and brought together for your ...
The rare book field is tradition laden. The way things were is the way they will continue to be, that is unless you are Marvin Getman, the show promoter, who thinks carefully and works hard to ens...
Books are a place where fantasy intersects with reality. There is perhaps no better example than the most popular children's book series of this century, the Harry Potter books. They are filled wit...
This month we review eight new catalogues. De Wolfe Wood and Michael Brown Rare Books are offering an early printing of photographs taken by Walker Evans in Cuba in 1933. He developed this set whi...
Sotheby’s Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M 18 October 2024
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Herodianus Syrus, Herodiani Historiarum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1524, Parisian binding for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard, ca. 1540
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Musaeus, Opusculum de Herone et Leandro, Venice, Aldo, 1495 (Greek text), interleaved with 1497–1498 (Latin text), English olive morocco by Charles Lewis, the Botfield copy
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Horatius Flaccus, Horatius, Venice, Aldo, 1501, Bolognese brown goatskin (between 1501 and 1503), arms of Mino Rossi and illuminated initials throughout
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Lucretius, De rerum natura, Venice, Aldo, 1500, English early eighteenth-century red morocco, the Fletcher copy
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: CATESBY, MARK. 1683-1749. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. $100,000 - $150,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and their Territories. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: ADAMS ON HIS PEAR TREES AND A LOST PORTRAIT BY SALEM ARTIST HANNAH CROWNINSHIELD. ADAMS, JOHN. 1735-1826. $10,000 - $15,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: EARLIEST MAP DEVOTED TO NORTH AMERICA. FORLANI, PAULO. fl.1560-1571. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: HAMILTON DEFENDS THE CONSTITUTION. HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. 1757-1804. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION BROADSIDE. Boston, September 14, 1768. $5,000 - $8,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: ONE OF THE EARLIEST ILLUSTRATIONS OF A SURGICAL PROCEDURE. BARTHOLOMAEUS ANGLICUS. $10,000 - $15,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: RICHARD FEYNMAN'S ANNOTATED COPY, WITH TWO EARLY FEYNMAN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS. $15,000 - $25,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN COMPUTING. TURING, ALAN MATHISON. 1912-1954. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: FINE OIL PORTRAIT OF ALBERT EINSTEIN BY EUGEN SPIRO. $40,000 - $60,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: PENICILLIN MOLD MEDALLION INSCRIBED BY ALEXANDER FLEMING. FLEMING, ALEXANDER. 1881-1955. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: APPLE "TWIGGY" MACINTOSH PROTOTYPE USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMONSTRATION SOFTWARE. $80,000 - $120,000
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: A Superb Extra-illustrated Copy of Nicolay and Hay’s Work About Lincoln. $50,000 – 70,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: The First Volume of De Bry's Great Voyages, Thomas Hariot's Description of Virginia. $50,000 – 70,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: An autographed cabinet card of Custer as lieutenant colonel. From his last sitting. $800 – 1,200.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: The Congressional Committee, Lincoln's Funeral Springfield Illinois, 3 May 1865. $4,000 – 6,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: A remarkable ninth plate daguerreotype of an interracial couple. $30,000 – 50,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: What may be the earliest known images of an identified plantation and enslaved African Americans posed with their owner. $20,000 – 30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: Through Tickets to All Principal Points West Via Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad For Sale at This Office. $500 – 700.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: 15th New York Infantry / Regiment of Engineers GAR regimental colors. Ca 1880. $1,500 – 2,500.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1556. Senghor, Les Élégies Majeures. Geneve 1978.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1572. Lew Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. First Edition, Moscow, 1878.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 49. Petrarca. Das Gluecksbuch, Augsburg, 1536.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1060. Immanuel Kant, Critik der reinen Vernunft. First Edition, Riga, 1781.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 585. Bonaparte, Iconografia della fauna Italica. Rome, 1832f.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 548. Robert Fludd. Utriusque cosmi maioris, Frankfurt, 1617f.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1496. Jacob / Picasso. Chronique des Temps, 1956.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 571. Christian von Wolff. Works, Halle 1741f.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 969. Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Dekorationen innerer Raeume. Berlin 1874.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1457. Goethe. Das Tagebuch. Print on Vellum. Berlin, Officina Serpentis. 1934.
