• Gonnelli:
    Auction 55
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    November 26st 2024
    Gonnelli: Stefano Della Bella, 23 animal plances,1641. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli: Stefano Della Bella, Boar Hunt, 1654. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli: Crispijn Van de Passe, The seven Arts, 1637. Starting price 600€
    Gonnelli: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, La Maschera è cagion di molti mali, 1688. Starting price 320€
    Gonnelli: Biribissor’s game, 1804-15. Starting price 2800€
    Gonnelli: Nicolas II de Larmessin, Habitats,1700. Starting price 320€
    Gonnelli: Miniature “O”, 1400. Starting price 1800€
    Gonnelli: Jan Van der Straet, Hunt scenes, 1596. Starting Price 140€
    Gonnelli: Massimino Baseggio, Costantinople, 1787. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli: Kawanabe Kyosai, Erotic scene lighten up by a candle, 1860. Starting price 380€
    Gonnelli: Duck shaped dropper, 1670. Starting price 800€
  • Doyle, Dec. 6: An extensive archive of Raymond Chandler’s unpublished drafts of fantasy stories. $60,000 to $80,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: RAND, AYN. Single page from Ayn Rand’s handwritten first draft of her influential final novel Atlas Shrugged. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: Ernest Hemingway’s first book with interesting provenance. Three Stories & Ten Poems. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: Hemingway’s second book, one of 170 copies. In Our Time. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: A finely colored example of Visscher’s double hemisphere world map, with a figured border. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: Raymond Chandler’s Olivetti Studio 44 Typewriter. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: Antonio Ordóñez's “Suit of Lights” owned by Ernest Hemingway. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: A remarkable Truman archive featuring an inscribed beam from the White House construction. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: The fourth edition of Audubon’s The Birds of America. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: The original typed manuscript for Chandler’s only opera. The Princess and the Pedlar: An Entirely Original Comic Opera. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: A splendidly illustrated treatise on ancient Peru and its Incan civilization. $7,000 to $10,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 6: A superb copy of Claude Lorrain’s Liber Veritatis from Longleat House. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 37: Archive of the pioneering woman artist Arrah Lee Gaul, most 1911-59. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 66: Letter describing the dropping water level at Owens Lake near Death Valley, long before it was drained, Keeler, CA, 26 July 1904. $3,000 to $4,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 102: To Horse, To Horse! My All for a Horse! The Washington Cavalry, illustrated Civil War broadside, Philadelphia, 1862. $4,000 to $6,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 135: Album of cyanotype views of the Florida panhandle and beyond, 224 photographs, 174 of them cyanotypes, Apalachicola, FL and elsewhere, circa 1895-1896. $1,200 to $1,800
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 154: Catalogue of the Library of the United States, as acquired from Thomas Jefferson, Washington, 1815. $15,000 to $25,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 173: New Englands First Fruits, featuring the first description of Harvard in print, London, 1643. $40,000 to $60,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 177: John P. Greene, Original manuscript diary of a mission to western New York with Joseph Smith, 1833. $60,000 to $90,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 243: P.E. Larson, photographer, Such is Life in the Far West: Early Morning Call in a Gambling Hall, Goldfield, NV, circa 1906. $2,500 to $3,500
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 261: Fred W. Sladen, Diaries of a WWII colonel commanding troops from Morocco to Italy to France, 1942-44. $3,000 to $4,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 309: Los mexicanos pintados por si mismos, por varios autores, a Mexican plate book. Mexico, 1854-1855. $2,000 to $3,000
    Swann, Nov. 21: Lot 8: Diaries of a prospector / trapper in the remote Alaska wilderness, 5 manuscript volumes. Alaska, 1917-64. $1,500 to $2,500.
  • Finarte, Nov 20-21: Alighieri, Dante - La Commedia, [col commento di Jacopo della Lana e Martino Paolo Nidobeato, curata da Martino Paolo Nidobeato e Guido da Terzago. Aggiunto Il Credo], 1478
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Alighieri, Dante - La Commedia [Commento di Christophorus Landinus, edita da Piero da Figino. Aggiunte le Rime diverse; Marsilius Ficinius, Ad Dantem gratulatio], 1491
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Lactantius, Lucius Coelius Firmianus - Opera, 1465
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Alighieri, Dante - Le terze rime di Dante, 1502
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Boccaccio, Giovanni - Il Decamerone. Di messer Giouanni Boccaccio, 1516
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Giordano Bruno - Candelaio comedia del Bruno nolano achademico di nulla achademia; detto il fastidito. In tristitia hilaris: in hilaritate tristis, 1582
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Petrarca, Francesco - Le cose volgari di Messer Francesco Petrarcha, 1504
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Legatura - Manoscritto - Medici - Cosimo III de' Medici / Solari, Giuseppe - I Ritratti Medicei overo Glorie e Grandezze della sempre sereniss. Casa Medici..., 1678
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Alighieri, Dante - La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri con varie annotazioni, e copiosi Rami adornata, 1757
    Finarte, Nov 20-21: Lot containing 80 printed guides and publications dedicated to travel and itineraries in Italy

Rare Book Monthly Articles - October - 2021 Issue

From Here to Eternity:  Collecting in your old age

From Here to Eternity: Collecting in your old age

Collections start randomly, and some day end.  Most don’t start out to be epic, rather they often turn out to be simply episodes.  The collector’s experience shapes what happens next. Money, time and intellectual acuity play roles.  Partner preferences matter as does luck.  The early sources you rely on are crucial.  Bill Reese influenced two of my collections; The New World to 1625, and the other, The American West to 1890.  He provided perspective on how to intelligently collect, providing reading lists and sources when/if the material was not within his personal experience.  For me, col...

What Is Going On With These Astronomical Prices for Collectibles?

What Is Going On With These Astronomical Prices for Collectibles?

What is going on here? We have been operating a collectibles site for 20 years, focus on books and traditional paper ephemera, such as broadsides and manuscripts. The books have been a bit soft the...

McBride Rare Books Welcomes Joe Fay!

McBride Rare Books Welcomes Joe Fay!

McBride Rare Books recently announced that Joe Fay whose career in the old and rare book field, now in its 21st year , has joined the principals at McBride; Teri Osborn and James McBride to be thei...

The Luckiest Bookseller Alive:  A Career Biography of Joe Fay

The Luckiest Bookseller Alive: A Career Biography of Joe Fay

Joe Fay recently joined the partnership that is McBride Rare Books (see here) so we asked him if he could provide us with his biography in the book trade. He did, and it is a fascinating journey, o...

Matchmaker:  Necessary in the New Era

Matchmaker: Necessary in the New Era

Why? The number of auctions for the rare book, manuscript, map and ephemera field has long been increasing, and finding and following lots relevant to your focus now needs more time to manage the ...

Sotheby’s to Auction Only Remaining First Printing of the Constitution in Private Hands Estimate $15/20 Million

Sotheby’s to Auction Only Remaining First Printing of the Constitution in Private Hands Estimate $15/20 Million

NEW YORK, 17 September 2021 – This Constitution Day – exactly 234 years since America’s Founding Fathers signed the country’s most significant and lasting document – Sotheby’s announces a copy of T...

Birdman and Boinayel, The First Gods of Jamaica

Birdman and Boinayel, The First Gods of Jamaica

As a long-time Jamaica fanatic, I was excited to come across an in-4° plate engraved by James Basire and entitled Antient Wooden Figures Found in Jamaica. It was, as the caption reads, “published b...

Confirmed. The Vinland Map is a Fake

Confirmed. The Vinland Map is a Fake

A previously unknown map emerged in 1957 and it was thought to be one of the most important geographic discoveries in history, one might say greater than Christopher Columbus' “discovery” of Americ...

The Final Stretch for 2021: Projections & Implications

The Final Stretch for 2021: Projections & Implications

This article serves to examine the 2021 rare book and print auction data in order to describe how and why, in itself, this year has been extraordinary. In addition, the article examines why and how...

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce our October online sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce our October online sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce our October online sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts including Americana, open for bidding from Oct 1st to the 15th, with lots beginning to close at 10am...

Auction Technology Group to complete acquisition of LiveAuctioneers

Auction Technology Group to complete acquisition of LiveAuctioneers

In July we wrote about Auction Technology Group’s proposed acquisition of Live Auctioneers and on 29 September ATG has further announced the transaction is to complete subject to final approvals re...

500 Comics and Other Items Stolen from Florida State University Library

500 Comics and Other Items Stolen from Florida State University Library

Almost 500 comic books and related material have been stolen from the Florida State University Library. Although just reported in the past couple of weeks, the thefts took place between March 17, 2...

Is It Too Soon to Collect Covid-19 Material?

Is It Too Soon to Collect Covid-19 Material?

It is not unusual for people to collect items related to terrible events, like wars, but usually they are of past, historic events. Is this one a little early? The Oxford University History of Scie...

The Ricky Jay Collection is Reappearing!

The Ricky Jay Collection is Reappearing!

On October 27 and 28, Sotheby’s will devote four live auction sessions to The Ricky Jay Collection, the auction house’s largest live sale since the dispersal of the Robert S Pirie Library in 2015. ...

New Record Price for a Comic Book - $3.6 Million

New Record Price for a Comic Book - $3.6 Million

Here we go again. Another record price in the sort-of books, paper ephemera category. Once more, a comic book has achieved a new record price - $3.6 million. If there is anything surprising here it...

Book Earrings

Book Earrings

You don't often find original new products for book lovers, but here is one – book earrings. There is a seller on Etsy now selling earrings that look like books. From the pictures, they look realis...

Four New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Four New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

  This month we are reviewing four new bookseller catalogues. Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books has a catalogue of collecting culture, featuring manuscripts and early printed books, mostly illuminated. ...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Doyle, Dec. 5: Minas Avetisian (1928-1975). Rest, 1973. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973). Yawning Tiger, conceived 1917. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Robert M. Kulicke (1924-2007). Full-Blown Red and White Roses in a Glass Vase, 1982. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). L’ATELIER DE CANNES (Bloch 794; Mourlot 279). The cover for Ces Peintres Nos Amis, vol. II. $1,000 to $1,500.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012). THE BEACH AT CANNES, 1979. $1,200 to $1,800.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Richard Avendon, the suite of eleven signed portraits from the Avedon/Paris portfolio. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989). Flowers in Vase, 1985. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Edward Weston (1886-1958). Nude, 1936. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Edward Weston (1886-1958). Juniper, High Sierra, 1937.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Steven J. Levn (b. 1964). Plumage II, 2011. $6,000 to $8,000.
    Doyle, Dec. 5: Steven Meisel (b. 1954). Madonna, Miami, (from Sex), 1992. $6,000 to $9,000.
  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction November 25th
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    H. Schedel, Liber chronicarum, 1493. Est: € 25,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    P. O. Runge, Farben-Kugel, 1810. Est: € 8,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    W. Kandinsky, Klänge, 1913. Est: € 20,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction November 25th
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    W. Burley, De vita et moribus philosophorum, 1473. Est: € 4,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    M. B. Valentini, Viridarium reformatum seu regnum vegetabile, 1719. Est: € 12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    PAN, 10 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: € 15,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction November 25th
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    J. de Gaddesden, Rosa anglica practica medicinae, 1492. Est: € 12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    M. Merian, Todten-Tanz, 1649. Est: € 5,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    D. Hammett, Red harvest, 1929. Est: € 11,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction November 25th
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    Book of hours, Horae B. M. V., 1503. Est: € 9,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    J. Miller, Illustratio systematis sexualis Linneai, 1792. Est: € 8,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 25:
    F. Hundertwasser, Regentag – Look at it on a rainy day, 1972. Est: € 8,000
  • Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s: J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. 11,135 USD
    Sotheby’s: Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven and Other Poems, 1845. 33,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Leo Tolstoy, Clara Bow. War and Peace, 1886. 22,500 USD
    Sotheby’s: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1902. 7,500 USD
    Sotheby’s: F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, and Others, 1920-1941. 24,180 USD

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