Rare Book Monthly Articles - April - 2018 Issue

Enigma, Seeking A Eureka

Enigma, Seeking A Eureka

MORE THAN A YEAR AGO, I was contacted by a collector in Rhode Island. (He is now a member of the Rare Book Hub community of book specialists.) The collector had acquired from a used bookdealer in Pennsylvania a tantalizing document: a hefty, anonymous manuscript (quarto format), mostly in French, in a deluxe gold-tooled binding, with marble endpapers, high-quality watermarked paper, and valuably dated on the title-leaf “1691”. Overall condition fair, with damage to the boards and hinges; binding, strong and stable; watermarked paper with some water damage, but high-quality writing paper. Ov...

The Rare Book Transaction Database: Now on Your Phone

The Rare Book Transaction Database: Now on Your Phone

We live in a world increasingly dominated by databases and cell phones. Prices, for better or worse, now move in real time, and both buyers and sellers benefit from awareness. Rare books, manuscrip...

Massive Heist of Rare Books from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library Valued at Millions of Dollars.

Massive Heist of Rare Books from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library Valued at Millions of Dollars.

News of a massive theft from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh has been revealed. The theft was originally discovered in April of 2017, though detailed information has only recently come out. A bo...

Looking to Import Old Books into the EU? Be Prepared for Much More Paperwork if These Regulations Are Adopted

Looking to Import Old Books into the EU? Be Prepared for Much More Paperwork if These Regulations Are Adopted

Booksellers and collectors aren't known for being terrorists, but new regulations that may be adopted by the European Union to stop terrorists may do more to interfere with book collecting than ter...

Strength at the New York Shows

Strength at the New York Shows

The New York Antiquarian Book Fairs have come and gone, delivering large crowds and excellent results to the more than three hundred exhibitors who participated in at least one of the three fairs: ...

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair:  It’s a question of timing

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair: It’s a question of timing

There’s probably nothing to be done about it but the timing of the New York ABAA Fair in March, a concession to business and financial realities, is simply not as good as almost any April dates.  A...

Credit Suisse Labels Rare Books a "Mediocre" Financial Investment

Credit Suisse Labels Rare Books a "Mediocre" Financial Investment

Rare books hit the news wires in an unflattering way last month. Credit Suisse, the major banking and financial institution headquartered in Zurich, released its annual Yearbook. They spoke of inve...

A New Look for Old World Auctions

A New Look for Old World Auctions

Many of you have been members of Rare Book Hub for years now, and over that time, you have surely witnessed the site change and evolve. But we are certainly not the only business in the industry in...

Archives:  The future arrives courtesy of Elvin Montgomery

Archives: The future arrives courtesy of Elvin Montgomery

Elvin Montgomery has been both an educator, dealer and appraiser for more than three decades and he increasingly has adjusted his focus as Black Americana, his category, has emerged from the shadow...

An Old Friend:  calling it a day

An Old Friend: calling it a day

Pensacola.  King Queen Books has begun their going out of business sale.   Long an active used and rare book dealer in west Florida, the surviving wife and partner of James Servies, Lana, is closi...

Froger's Travel - Nothing wrong with killing Spaniards... and English

Froger's Travel - Nothing wrong with killing Spaniards... and English

Welcome on board the Faucon Anglois (or English Falcon), one of the six vessels led by Captain Jean-Baptiste de Gennes in 1695. You are about to embark on a three-year expedition that will take you...

The History of Jamaica 1494-1838 by Thibault Ehrengardt – This Book Captures Its Tragedy, Brutality, Pirates, Revolts, and Earthquake, All Sweetened by a Massive Dose of Sugar

The History of Jamaica 1494-1838 by Thibault Ehrengardt – This Book Captures Its Tragedy, Brutality, Pirates, Revolts, and Earthquake, All Sweetened by a Massive Dose of Sugar

Many of our readers have been enjoying and learning from the essays written by our French correspondent, Thibault Ehrengardt. Enhrengardt writes of both events current in the book world and reviews...

Dust - an Occupational Health Hazard for Booksellers

Dust - an Occupational Health Hazard for Booksellers

Since I've been handling books and old paper for over 40 years without sneezing or blowing my nose a thousand times a day, I wonder why I have become sensitive to dust and other airborne pollutants...

Law Books Bright and Beautiful on Display at the Yale Law Library

Law Books Bright and Beautiful on Display at the Yale Law Library

The common wisdom is that law books are long and boring plain texts. I don't know whether this exhibit will fix the long and boring part of that reputation, but it will make you reconsider the assu...

Eleven New Catalogues Reviewed for April

Eleven New Catalogues Reviewed for April

This month we review 11 new bookseller catalogues. Travels and voyages are the subject of recent collections from J. F. Letenneur Rare Books and the William Reese Company. If you want to take one o...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Dante, Le terze rime, Venice, Aldo, 1502, illuminated, contemporary Bolognese morocco binding
  • 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.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1316. Tolouse-Lautrec. Dessinateur. Duhayon binding, 1948.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 30. Michael de Hungaria. Sermones praedicabiles, Strasbourg, 1494.
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    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
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    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
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