Bill Reese, who passed away in 2018, was both a rare book dealer and a collector of Americana, other books, prints, and art. It was a great privilege for me to be his client for a decade. In 2002, Bill Reese became the very first member of Americana Exchange (now RareBookHub). In 2022 his exceptional personal collection will be sold at Christie's and it will be a monumental event.
The collection, acquired over decades, will be dispersed in a matter of days and hours: his fourteen thousand days in the field, converted into "May I have an opening bid? On the left, yes in the back and...
What Sotheby's said would be one of the great library sales of recent years has been called off, and for the noblest of reasons. The sale was of the Honresfield Library, one of the greatest British...
It’s a fantasy we all have: Let’s open a really good old style bookstore. We’ll buy an antique building in a sleepy little town on the outskirts of some major metro area and hope that with a lot of...
We have a couple of stories of overdue library books this month. These are not typical overdue books, but ones dating back to the first half of the twentieth century. Such books rarely ever make a ...
Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books [ABAA] has recently moved offices from San Francisco to bucolic Connecticut where the firm will continue to develop its web presence, while issuing occasional virtua...
Books, manuscript, maps, and ephemera take you only so far. It’s possible to disappear into a great story but it’s close to shocking to consider you can personally acquire objects mentioned, pictu...
Style defines the man, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon once said—it also defines the woman, of course; but it was less frequently underlined in the 18th century. That’s probably one of the reasons ...
Every book town has the bookstore. The singular institution run by a bookseller with decades of experience. You need to prepare yourself for such places. Fortify yourself to sustain your focus for ...
Some disturbing news has come out of Hungary recently of concern to those who support freedom of ideas in books. Hungary might not seem an important place on the world stage, but as those cognizant...
Donald Heald, the New York rare book dealer, had been watching the emergence of auctions over the past decade as an alternative to selling at set prices and concluded the market was increasingly in...
Records were set at Freeman's auction in anticipation of July 4 when a copy of the Declaration of Independence sold for over $4 million. According to Freeman's, that was the highest aucrion price e...
A few months ago Helen R. Kahn sold her stock of rare books, maps and manuscripts to Patrick McGahern Books. The news arrived in an email mentioning that the Kahn stock is now offered by the McGah...
Another month, another collectible card setting record prices. However, this one is nowhere even near the price of other cards we have seen. It's not the $5 million+ spent on a Babe Ruth or Mickey ...
This month we review four new bookseller catalogues. Forest Books has a miscellany that seems to cover every imaginable subject. Stuart Lutz Historic Documents has many manuscripts and autographs o...
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.