Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2020 Issue

Every Auction Has a Story and sometimes they get dark

Every Auction Has a Story and sometimes they get dark

On 16 May 1870 the inventory and collection of Edward P. Boon was offered at auction at Leavitt Strebeigh in New York.  It was an important sale because of its contents and significant that its consignor selected Leavitt rather than Bangs, who was the perennial leader in New York auctioning collectible paper.  Boon's first sale was committed earlier while two other sales remained to be confirmed.  Bangs wanted them.  The market was already off and Leavitt in an increasingly strong position.  As an auction power since the 1840’s, Bangs had been through thick and thin periods but 1870 was fee...

Rant of the eBay Power Seller: Part III

Rant of the eBay Power Seller: Part III

Remember me, your friendly Hawaii antiquarian dealer, frequent Rare Book Hub contributor and long time ‘Power Seller’ on eBay with 1,566 feedback comments and a 100% positive rating? I’ve written t...

The Voynich Manuscript Code Finally Broken...Again

The Voynich Manuscript Code Finally Broken...Again

At last, the code to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript has been broken. Stop me if you've heard this before. Many have tried to break this code, almost as many have claimed to, and yet the language...

Marvin Getman:  the book fair visionary

Marvin Getman: the book fair visionary

Marvin Getman, the established book fair promoter, saw that business brought to a full stop by the emergence of Covid-19 in early 2020.  His response was to develop another way to replicate the sho...

AbeBooks Top 10 Prices for April-June

AbeBooks Top 10 Prices for April-June

AbeBooks has announced its Top 10 highest prices paid for books on their website during the second quarter of 2020. There is something for everyone here, at least everyone with a healthy amount of ...

Rare Book Hub: into the great beyond:  10,000,551 full text records

Rare Book Hub: into the great beyond: 10,000,551 full text records

Rare Book Hub, nee Americana Exchange on September 3, 2002, began its journey into building a complete record of auction appearances and outcomes of collectible books, manuscripts, maps and ephemer...

Help A Salt Lake City and American Tradition Survive the Virus

Help A Salt Lake City and American Tradition Survive the Virus

Ken Sanders Rare Books has been serving customers throughout the American West and beyond for most of five decades from their store in Salt Lake City. The book business has been challenging in rece...

Isaac Weld in America, or when America was (about to be) great.

Isaac Weld in America, or when America was (about to be) great.

When was America great? Maybe in its infancy, just after the glorious War of Independence? Wasn’t it then a promising land of freedom and opportunity? A New Jerusalem, and a shelter for those who l...

Are Live Book Fairs Done for the Year?

Are Live Book Fairs Done for the Year?

There is still almost half of the year left, but it may not be too soon to ask, will there be any more live book fairs in 2020? The last of the major fairs this year was held at the beginning of Ma...

A New Paltz Clock:  a moving experience

A New Paltz Clock: a moving experience

A New Paltz Clock:  a moving experience   Almost two years ago I ran across an old clock described as “Rare Sidney Wall Clock” at auction at Fontaine’s Auctions online during the summer of 2018. ...

Is It Legal to Create Digital Copies of Copyrighted Books?

Is It Legal to Create Digital Copies of Copyrighted Books?

Last month we wrote about a contentious dispute between the Internet Archive and four large book publishers over the use of digitized copies of printed books (click here). The Internet Archive hold...

Money Money Money

Money Money Money

Covid-19 and the turgid economy present a lethal mixture of possibilities that will work themselves out over the next five years.  For book dealers and collectors these issues will present addition...

It Was a Profitable Year for Shapero Rare Books, But...

It Was a Profitable Year for Shapero Rare Books, But...

Scholium Group, parent of London bookseller Shapero Rare Books, recently released their earnings report for their past fiscal year, ending on March 31, 2020. It was a good year. The firm, of which ...

A New Use for Old Books – Commercialized Art

A New Use for Old Books – Commercialized Art

The sin of book desecration has a new convert and the outrage has spread through the world of social media like a video of a cute kitten playing with a ball of yarn. We have seen people cut books a...

Only One New Catalogue This Month

Only One New Catalogue This Month

The coronavirus has taken its toll on book catalogues. Most booksellers appear to be hunkering down to weather the storm, rather than aggressively promoting into it. Add to that summer being the sl...

Rare Book Monthly

  • RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
  • 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
  • One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Abraham Lincoln Signed Letter on Executive Mansion Stationary To Secretary of The Navy re: Appointment for Naval Academy!
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Extremely Rare Ben Franklin Printed: Considerations on Keeping Negroes...Part Second. 1762.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: An impressively extra-illustrated copy; Including an Original leaf from Shakespeare’s 1623 First Folio!
    One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Rarest Naval Autograph James Lawrence “Don’t give up the ship On " U.S. Ship Hornet June 19th 1812.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Oversize Ernest Hemingway Signed Photo with long Inscription about Drinking Wine to his dear friend and Secretary Roberto Herrera.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: VOLTAIRE Signed Receipt about a partial payment of debt for the Duke of Wuerttemberg.
    One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: [Maps] Gio. Ant. Magnini, Italia, 1620.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: LAWMAN SALOON JUDGE ROY BEAN Signed Legal Document 1895-RARE!
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Autograph Album with James Garfield as President, Chester A. Aurthur as VP, William T. Sherman, Burnside, P.T. Barnum and many more!
    One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison Signed Four Language Ship's Paper.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Hector Berlioz Autograph Musical Quotation Signed.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Important Memorandum the Day after Gettysburg July 5th, 1863 where Lincoln asks all Department Heads of the cabinet to meet him at the Executive Mansion.

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions