Rare Book Monthly « September

Rare Book Hub: 20 Years in the Making

Two decades ago, as a collector of old and rare paper, I needed more information to collect safely. I wanted to be aggressive but needed to access valuation and rarity. The field was massive, dominated by dealers, spanning the globe, divided by categories, and marketed many ways. The field was thriving by many measures except for one: collectors too often weren’t getting their money back at the end of their collecting experience. I was prepared to spend some millions of dollars to build a series of collections if they made financial sense. Without that, I wouldn’t feel secure. Ame...

The Rare Book Batch Valuation Service

The number and scale of public auctions offering books has reached a level where there are both enough current lots and accumulated auction history to offer a service to provide near-instant estima...

Prized Galileo Manuscript at the University of Michigan Turns Out to Be a Forgery

One of the prized possessions of the University of Michigan Library has been found to be a fake. It is a refrain we have heard many times in the past, and as with many of these, it is not a recent ...

Behind Closed Doors on January 6

Until recently, most people didn’t give much thought to January 6 or how electoral votes were tallied for Presidential elections. After most Presidential elections, the January 6 Joint Session of C...

The First Eight-Figure Baseball Card

We have written many times about new record prices for baseball and other sports cards, but only because so many records have been set in recent years. This sort of paper collectible, small in stat...

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce its upcoming auction, The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese, taking place online from 1-14 September.

Christie's New York is pleased to announce its upcoming auction, The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese, taking place online from 1-14 September. William S. Reese was the pre-eminen...

Anachronistic Tormenting Little Devils, or the choice of anecdotes

Mysteries surrounding old books are little devils dedicated to tormenting us. One of them has been nagging me for a while. It emanates from a particular book (Choix d’anecdotes Américaines..., Pari...

Are Printed Books Superior to Digital Ones for Reading Comprehension?

Is there a cognitive difference between reading on paper and reading on an electronic device? There has been much suspicion based on reader experience that it does make a difference. Now, a study f...

Shapero Rare Books Experiences Major Turnaround to Profitability

Scholium Group announced their financial results for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2022, and the numbers are very good. Scholium is the parent of Shapero Rare Books in London and as the one p...

It doesn’t have to be old to be gold: RR Auctions is offering 21 items

Elon Musk was once a mortal and had an appealing girlfriend when he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania where he and she lived and worked as Resident Advisors in 1995. The relationship...

Book Events Coming Soon

Bookish Briefs: Black Bibliography Virtual Salon Sept. 22nd Digital Humanities Book History Conference Sept. 22-24 Big Sendak Exhibit coming to Columbus, Ohio in October Will Bradley and other...

How Much Medieval Literature Was Lost Forever?

How much literature from Medieval times has been lost forever? That's a hard one to answer. You can't very well count it if it is lost. What we can say is there must be a substantial amount. This p...

One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions: A Fun Sale ending on the 29th

One of a Kind Collectibles, a division of Gindy Auctions, invites you to participate in their September 29th auction that includes presidential pieces such as a rare James Garfield appointment, and...

Three New Bookseller Catalogues Reviewed

The summertime is slow, so we only have three new catalogues to review this month. The Lawbook Exchange has a new catalogue of material related to the law, from serious legal texts to sensational a...