• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2017 Issue

Important Signed Documents from the Raab Collection

Autographed documents from the Raab Collection.

The Raab Collection has released their Catalog 80 of autographed documents. This is absolutely top of the line material when it comes to autograph collecting. Not only is every person who signed these papers well-known and important in history, but many of the documents themselves are of major significance. This catalogue is a history lesson too as Raab not only thoroughly describes what they sell, but places each item in its historical context. While most of these signatures come from Americans, there are a few others as well, such as Churchill, Gandhi, Monet, Marie Curie, and King George VI. Here are a few selections.

 

This looks like a significant piece of Americana with which to start the list. How about a 1776 signed letter from George Washington a few months before the Declaration of Independence to officials in New York, asking them to stop local merchants from trading with British military ships in the harbor? Item 1 is just such a letter, an urgent entreaty from the leader of the American troops. Writes Washington most convincingly, "We are to consider ourselves either in a state of Peace or War with Great Britain. If the former why are our Ports shut up – Our Trade destroyed – Our property seized – Our Towns burnt, and our worthy and valuable Citizens led into Captivity & suffering the most cruel hardships? If the latter, my imagination is not fertile enough to suggest a reason in support of the intercourse..." New York's Committee of Safety saw the irrefutable logic of Washington's entreaty and promised to stop the trade and cooperate with Washington in every way possible. Priced at $170,000.

 

Albert Einstein did not talk much about religion, though there were those who wanted to know what the world's presumptive smartest person's theological beliefs were. He certainly did not believe in anything resembling a traditional biblical version of God, though he did understand that the universe was tightly ruled by immutable laws, while a random universe, he thought, would act randomly. In 1945, he received a letter from Ensign Guy Raner, who wrote Einstein that an officer told him Einstein converted from atheism to theism based on the syllogism presented him by a Jesuit priest. It says that the universe is a design, a design requires a designer, therefore there must be a designer (God). First, Einstein angrily refutes the claim of his conversion, saying "I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life..." He then goes on to say, interestingly, "From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." However, he does not call himself an atheist. In an obvious comment about the traditional biblical image of God as a being with human-like thoughts and emotions, he describes "anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere" as "childish analogies." As for the order in the universe, he says, "We have to admire in humility the beautiful harmony of the structure of this world – as far as we can grasp it. And that is all." Understanding the order of the universe, or some might say understanding the nature of God, is above even Einstein's intelligence. Item 9. $75,000.

 

This next letter was not supposed to be a theological treatise, though its subject was based on a belief still quite controversial then (and to some extent now) in religious circles. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote this letter to noted naturalist John Burroughs in 1906. Roosevelt was quite a naturalist in his own right, dedicated to preserving the nation's natural history through its national parks. The letter is a discussion of animals and the development of their features. He talks about human development of intellectual capabilities, which "...have developed from ancestors which in the immemorial past possessed only such mental attributes as a mollusk or crustacean of today possesses." Considering that the Scopes Monkey Trial was still 20 years in the future at this time, many would have found Roosevelt's evolutionary beliefs heretical. He goes on to say that higher animals such as apes or even dogs, while still far less developed than the lowest man, display "...intellectual traits and (if I may use the word very loosely) moral or ethical traits, which represent embryonic or rudimentary forms of such intellectual and moral traits of our own..." Item 4. $15,000.

 

Next we have a remarkable letter from Thomas Jefferson, written in 1816, seven years after he left the presidency. His positions can confound people today, and leave people to cite him for views all across the political spectrum. The reason is that his values were liberal, focused on helping those least well off (slaves excepted), but some of his means, perhaps appropriate for the time, are more like those of conservatives today. He could certainly be described as an America Firster, seeking to protect Americans from foreign competition. This belief arose from his opinion that America was and would remain an agricultural nation, one of small farmers. He sought to keep them small farmers so as to protect these less than wealthy people from the exploitation experienced by factory workers in Europe. As such, he opposed the interests of large businesses, a different motivation than today's isolationists. He also believed that if America became involved in widespread international commerce, it would inevitably result in wars with competitor nations, such as were constantly taking place between European nations at this time. "And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants, and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial speculation," he writes. Jefferson also supported the idea of states seceding from the union, though he endorses it on behalf of the commercial oriented states if they insist on such widespread trade. Jefferson wished to protect the agricultural states and their citizens from being drawn into the worker exploitation and wars common to the European nations. Item 18. $375,000.

 

Talk about a President who was a mixed bag, here is another whose views crossed the political spectrum, a man once widely celebrated whose reputation has been badly tarnished in recent years. Andrew Jackson was another supporter of the little man, his glaring blind spot being America's natives. Yet even as he brutally exiled them to far off, undesirable parts of the continent, he was welcoming to immigrants as this letter reveals. Jackson had received a letter from Bernhard Muller, a recent German immigrant at the time this letter was written in 1831. Muller sought Jackson's protection as he felt vulnerable in the new land. Jackson responds by reassuring Muller that he does not need the President's protection as in America, he is fully protected by the law. Noting that Muller had expressed his desire to settle in America, Jackson writes, "Such acquisitions it is the interest and pride of the United States to cherish; and as their highest executive officer I take delight in assuring that the benign and equal spirit of their laws will not only protect your person and property but I trust will promise to you the enjoyment of as much prosperity as can be promoted by the influence of government in any country anywhere." Item 12. $21,000.

 

The Raab Collection may be reached at 800-977-8333. Their website is www.raabcollection.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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