Rare Book Monthly « May - 2021 « Rare Book Hub - Rare Books, Book Auctions, Antiquarian Book Collecting

Rare Book Monthly Articles - May - 2021 Issue

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Book Fairs: May you live in Interesting Times

Sanford L. Smith + Associates has announced they are preparing for the 61st Annual New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the New York Armory, September 9 – 12. They are planning for a flexible number of exhibitors, down from the previous 210, allowing for increased space between booths. The fair is at capacity under the current guidelines from New York City and the CDC, but as the situation evolves, so will the fair. SLSA is expected to release the revised show map around mid-August.

SLSA will be closely following all guidelines from the CDC for ex...

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Coming Soon - Digital Collectible Books?

One advantage we always thought physical books had over their digital counterparts is that physical books are collectible. There is no way you could collect a book composed of ephemeral electronic ...

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Guest writer, Maureen E. Mulvihill, brings our attention to an important publication event in Irish Studies.

In her newest essay for Rare Book Hub, guest writer Maureen E. Mulvihill discusses history-writing and the new Cambridge History of Ireland, 4 volumes, some 100 contributors. Do you spot a familiar...

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Another Record Price for a Collectible Card

Once in a while, a collecting field becomes so hot it's hard to even keep up with what is going on. Such is the case with collector cards these days. It's reminiscent of tulips a few centuries ago,...

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A Solution in Search of a Problem: Tchotchkes

If you are collecting books no one needs to think where they will put them because book shelves are a basic design element. Shelves are everywhere. Manuscripts, often slim and fragile, ...

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Of Montaigne’s Thoughts and Flatulence

When I decided to visit Italy lately, I chose to visit it in the year 1580, and alongside Michel de Montaigne! The way I see it, if you’re gonna travel through space and time, why not do it w...

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“OK Boomer” - Or what I learned from the Pandemic

It’s been a long year.

Hawaii went into lockdown in March of 2020 and is just now emerging to some semblance of pre-pandemic life. About the world of books there’s not much to ...

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Forum Auctions Celebrating Five Years with 12 Sales Beginning May 6th Culminating with their 250th in July

Forum Auctions in July is soon celebrating their 5th anniversary and are conducting a series of sales – both online only and ‘traditional’ – over the course of the spring an...

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While Walking in San Francisco

Ten years or so ago I used to occasionally walk along Sacramento Street between Presidio and Arguello in San Francisco when the weather was good, looking into sultry store windows arrayed to attrac...

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Historical Paper Triumphant Once Again; Prices Soar at Sotheby's!

The stupendous collection of Printed and Manuscript Americana built by Ira and Barbara Lipman grossed just under 12.4 Million dollars at Sotheby's this past month.

It is never a surprise w...

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BookTok – A Book Phenomenon

Where is the next generation of book collectors? On #BookTok, maybe? You may not be familiar with BookTok if you are over, say, 25 years old. I don't know how many people subscribe to or visit #boo...

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Fine Travel books, Atlases, Maps, Natural History and historical Photographs

Sotheby’s London is offering 192 lots in its online sale of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History which runs until May 13.
Leading the sale is a 5 volume set of Braun and Hogenberg&rsquo...

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Terrible Fire Destroys Library Collections

It was a library's worst nightmare. On April 18, a fire broke out on Devil's Peak in Cape Town, South Africa. It grew rapidly before firefighters were able to control it. It spread to the Universit...

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A Book Store is Closing

When a diner or shoe store closes the two rarely raise the ambient decibels while, when a bookstore closes, the future of civilization is imperiled. The difference is that bookstores, for man...

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I Have Been Offered $950,000, But Is It Real?

I get lots of “free” offers and I have learned to ignore most of them. They are generally for things I don't want anyway. But, when someone offers me $950,000, I do take notice. That is...

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Nine New Catalogues Reviewed

This month we review nine new catalogues, which includes some unusual and spectacular ones. Artifacts of the Bible presents an extensive collection which is practically a history of the Church of J...

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Rare Book Monthly

<i>Der Sturm.</i> 1922. Sold October 2021 for € 13,000.

Diophantus Alexandrinus, <i>Arithmeticorum libri sex.</i> 1670. Sold October 2021 for € 18,000.

<i>Cozzani Ettore e altri, l’Eroica. Tutto il pubblicato.</i> Sold October 2021 for € 11,000.

Newton Isaac, <i>Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica.</i> 1714. Sold October 2021 for € 7,500.

Manetti Saverio, <i>Storia naturale degli uccelli.</i> 1767-1776. Sold April 2021 for € 26,000.
<center><br>Swann Auction Galleries<br>Maps & Atlases<br>Natural History<br>& Color Plate Books<br>December 9, 2021</b>

<b>Swann, Dec. 9:</b> AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES. Carolina Parrot. Plate 26. Hand-colored aquatint and engraved plate from Audubon's <i>Birds of America.</i> $80,000 to $100,000.

<b>Swann, Dec. 9:</b> Francisco Henrique Carls. [Album de Pernambuco e seus Arrabaldes]. Fifty-three chromolithographed plates of landscape, town views and more of the state of Pernambuco, northeast Brazil. $25,000 to $35,000.

<b>Swann, Dec. 9:</b> Captain Thomas Davies, after. Group of 5 engraved topographical scenes of North American waterfalls. $8,000 to $12,000.

<center><br>Swann Auction Galleries<br>Maps & Atlases<br>Natural History<br>& Color Plate Books<br>December 9, 2021</b>

<b>Swann, Dec. 9:</b> William R. Morley. Morley's Map of New Mexico. Large lithographed pocket map with original hand-color in outline. $7,000 to $10,000.

<b>Swann, Dec. 9:</b> Frederick William Beechey, et al. <i>The Zoology of Captain Beechey's Voyage; Compiled from the Collections and Notes Made by Captain Beechey…</i> $7,000 to $10,000.

<b>Swann, Dec. 9:</b> ZUDA ROKASHI (Priest Hotan.) Nansenbushu Bankoku Shoka No Zu. Woodblock wall map of the world on 16 sheets joined. $5,000 to $7,500.
<b><center> Ketterer Rare Books<br>Auction on November 29th</b>

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b> Latin Book of Hours, Langres around 1490. Est: €50,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>T. Livius, <i>Römische Historien,</i> 1533. Est: €12,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>G. Mendel, <i>Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden,</i> 1865-66. Est: €30,000

<b><center> Ketterer Rare Books<br>Auction on November 29th</b>

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>A. Verard, Book of Hours, around 1488. Est: €30,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>A. Ortelius, <i>Theatrum orbis terrarum,</i> 1601. Est: €80,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br><i>Der Sturm,</i> 1910-1916. Est: €16,000

<b><center> Ketterer Rare Books<br>Auction on November 29th</b>

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b> <i>Cronica van der hilliger Stat Coellen,</i> 1499. Est: €25,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>M. Catesby, <i>Piscium serpentum insectorum,</i> 1777. Est: €25,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>W. Grohmann, <i>Das Werk Ernst Ludwig Kirchners,</i> 1926. Est: €20,000

<b><center> Ketterer Rare Books<br>Auction on November 29th</b>

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>P. Borgo, <i>Aritmetica mercantile,</i> 1491. Est: €16,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b><br>D. Roberts, <i>Egypt and Nubia,</i> 1846-49. Est: €8,000

<b>Ketterer Rare Books, Nov. 29:</b> <i>Estampes,</i> with the suite by P. Picasso, 1950. Est: €15,000
<center><b>Sotheby’s<br>Zang Tumb Tuuum:<br>la révolution futuriste<br>Online Auction<br>30 November – 7 December</b>

<b>Sotheby’s, Nov. 18:</b> The "Official Edition" of the United States Constitution and the First Printing of the Final Text of the Constitution, 1787. $15,000,000 to $20,000.

<b>Sotheby’s, Nov. 30 – Dec. 7:</b> Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso. I Paroliberi Futuristi. 1914-1915. 8 p. Unique corrected proofs, for an anthology that remained unpublished. €40,000 to €60,000.

<b>Sotheby’s, Nov. 30 – Dec. 7:</b> Cangiullo, Francesco. Studenti in Lettere. Università. 1915. Seminal work, featured in 3 historical futurist exhibitions. €20,000 to €30,000.

<b>Sotheby’s, Nov. 30 – Dec. 7:</b> Cangiullo, Francesco. Chiaro di luna. Circa 1915. Collage and gouache on paper. €15,000 to €20,000.

<b>Sotheby’s, Nov. 30 – Dec. 7:</b> Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso. Manicure. Faire les ongles à l'Italie. Circa 1915. A fantastic parody of an advertising poster. €20,000 to €30,000.
<b><center>Doyle<br>Rare Books, Autographs & Maps<br>December 9</b>

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 47. Roosevelt, Theodore. Photograph inscribed to Morris J. Hirsch. May 7th 1918. $1,500 to $2,500.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 178. Whitman, Walt. <i>Leaves of Grass.</i> Brooklyn, New York: [Printed for the author], 1955. First edition in the first issue binding. $70,000 to $100,000.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 38. Mather, Cotton. <i>Magnalia Christi Americana; or, the Ecclesiastical History of New-England.</i> London: Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, 1702. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 55. Taylor, Zachary. Autograph letter signed as President-Elect. Baton Rouge: January 15, 1849. $5,000 to $8,000.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 203. Picasso, Pablo. <i>Verve</i> Vol. V, Nos. 19-20. Paris: Editions Verve, 1948. Inscribed on the title page by Picasso. $1,500 to $2,500.

<b><center>Doyle<br>Rare Books, Autographs & Maps<br>December 9</b>

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 211. Domergue, Jean-Gabriel. L'Ete a Monte Carlo. Lithographed poster, Lucien Serre & Cie, Paris, circa 1937. $1,000 to $1,500.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 105. Manuscript Illumination attr. to Neri da Rimini. Large excised initial "N" from a choirbook, extensively historiated. [Likely Rimini: first quarter of the 14th century]. $2,000 to $3,000.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 40. McKenney, Thomas L. and Hall, James. <i>History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs.</i> Philadelphia: Rice, Rutter & Co., 1870. $3,00

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 222. Searle, Ronald. [Pets--a dog, cats and a parrot-- surrounded by books, and inspecting a globe, perhaps planning global domination]. Original drawing, 17 3/8 x 13 1/2 inches. $1,500 to $2,500.

<b>Doyle, Rare Books, Autographs & Maps:</b> Lot 98. Faden, William; Scull, Nicholas and George Heap. A Plan of the City and Environs of Philadelphia, Survey'd by N. Scull and G. Heap. London: William Faden, 12 March 1777. $3,000 to $5,000.

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