Rare Book Monthly Articles - January - 2018 Issue

The Rare Book Hub Top 500 Prices Paid at Auction in 2017

Another year has come to a close, meaning it's time to look back at the Rare Book Hub Top 500 auction prices in the field of books and paper for the year 2017. The high end of sales was a little softer this time. Nothing matched last year's high price of $5.6 million, let alone previous years when the Bay Psalm Book and Audubon's Birds of America pushed the top price into double digit millions. This year, the best that could be mustered was $1.8 million, the lowest high in many years.   At the bottom, the slippage was more modest. Number 500 took in $71,700, a drop of 1.2% from $72,576 in...

The Year Ahead

For those involved in the world of books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera 2018 will be complex.  This is nothing new but we’ll probably see continuation of the widening market split between the worl...

How can we help in 2018?

How can we help in 2018?   Change is now embedded in the fields of rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera.  Knowledge continues to increase, even explode, and as it does, the value and relati...

AbeBook Lists Their Top 10 Most Expensive Items for 2017

"I am" seem to be the magic words for the AbeBooks annual Top 10. Last year, it was "Sam I am," this year "I think, therefore I am." Who knew Dr. Seuss and Rene Descartes had so much in common? We ...

8 Topics from the world of books you might have missed in 2017

1) KINDLE TURNS 10 - SALE OF e-BOOKS PLATEAU Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader first introduced in 2007 turned ten in 2017. Though Kindle is credited with bringing portability and broad based popularity t...

Mr Cléry and “Fake-Book”, or the Last Days of Louis XVI.

There was a post on Facebook the other day about the new evil of our times, fake news. Spreading through social networks, it has become a worldwide weapon of misinformation. This reminded me of an ...

AbeBooks to Remove eBooks from Their Website

AbeBooks recently announced to their participating booksellers that they will discontinue listing eBooks on all of their websites. This will be welcome news to those who use their site to find coll...

William Dailey: known by the friends that he kept

     It is okay, even fine, if as a life ends, few mourn.  Most people are neither well known, nor well understood.  Hell, we often don’t know ourselves very well so thinking that others understan...

Jan. 27: Fine Books & Manuscripts including an unknown Truman archive at Potter & Potter Auctions

This month, Potter Potter Auctions is hosting a sale of Fine Books Manuscripts comprising 563 lots. The sale boasts an impressive range of material including Presidential autographs and documents...

Jan. 27: Presidential autographs, maps, Civil War and rare books at Case Antiques

Letters and books from the libraries of President George Washington and his early biographer and friend, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, constitute key lots in the Winter Case Antique...

A Book Collector on the Prowl

Recently I purchased an obscure Munsell imprint.  Such imprints were the production of Joel Munsell of Albany.  His was a modest printing establishment, initiated in 1834, that would run beyond his...

What to Do About a "Raging Bigot" of a Bookseller?

It wasn't the best of publicity for the antiquarian book trade. Actually, it wasn't particularly a book trade issue. Every type of business has its good and its bad. Still, a story about a booksell...

Who Owns the Rosetta Stone?

There are few "manuscripts" (but not works on paper) from antiquity more important than the Rosetta Stone. Discovered in Egypt in 1799, the Rosetta Stone was the key to deciphering the meaning of E...

eCatalogues

  1 The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd 30 Antiquarian Items: Canon, Civil, Common, Ecclesiastical, Rabbinical and Roman Law E-List 30 Items Catalogue Link 2 The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd ...

Twelve New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we take a look at 12 new catalogues in our Reviews section. Primary Sources Uncharted Americana has published their first catalogue. Their specialty is unique or rare material in the fie...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Important Modern Literature from the Library of an American Filmmaker
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Kerouac, Jack. Typescript scroll of The Dharma Bums. Typed by Kerouac in Orlando, Florida, 1957, published by Viking in 1958. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. The autograph manuscript of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Miller, Henry. Typescript of The Last Book, a working title for Tropic of Cancer, written circa 1931–1932. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with a lengthy inscription to Joe Goode. 40,000 - 60,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. in our time, first edition of Hemingway’s second book. 30,000 - 50,000 USD
  • Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Samuel Augustus Mitchell, A New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining, Philadelphia, 1846. $3,500 to $5,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: 17th–19th-century case maps of various locations. $1,500 to $2,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Andreas Cellarius, Haemisphaerium Stellatum Boreale Cum Subiecto Haemisphaerio Terrestri, celestial chart, Amsterdam, 1708. $2,500 to $3,500.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Vincenzo Coronelli, Set of engraved gores for Coronelli’s monumental 42-inch terrestrial globe, Venice, circa 1688–97. $18,000 to $22,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, group of four navigational charts, Antwerp, 1580s. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Thomas Bros, Block Book of Berkeley, Oakland, 1920s. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Nieuhoff & John Ogilby, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, map of China, plan of Canton, London, 1673. $1,200 to $1,800.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Frederick Sander, Reichenbachia, St. Albans, 1888-1894. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Two early illustrated works on horsemanship and breeding, Nuremberg, early 18th century. $700 to $800.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Gould, A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans. Supplement to the First Edition, London, 1834; 1855. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World, London, 1808–14. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Oakley Hoopes Bailey, Hackensack, New Jersey, Boston, 1896. $800 to $1,200.
  • CHRISTIE’S
    Valuable Books and Manuscripts
    London auction
    13 December
    Find out more
    Christie’s, Explore now
    TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
    C.1311. £100,000–150,000
  • Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800
  • Sotheby’s
    Fine Books and Manuscripts
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane] — Isaac D'Israeli. Jane Austen's copy of Curiosities of Literature. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition in boards of the author's debut novel. 70,000 - 100,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Brontë, Charlotte. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me..." 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Eliot, George. The author's magnum opus. 25,000 - 35,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Whitman, Walt. Manuscript written upon the Death of Lincoln, 1865. 60,000 - 80,000 USD

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