• 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2018 Issue

Social Movements from Lorne Bair Rare Books

Social movements from Lorne Bair Rare Books.

Lorne Bair Rare Books recently published their Catalog 29. Bair specializes in material related to social movements, or as they say, "American (and un-American) social movements." "Un-American" could refer to social movements outside of the U.S., but generally it refers to the label put on groups from the left by those on the right. Think of the House Un-American Activities Committee. You can find something in here from the radical right, but the topics listed give away from which side of the spectrum most of this material emanates. Here they are: African American History & Literature; Radical, Social & Proletarian Literature; Radical History & Social Movements; Women's History & Literature; and Graphics, Art & Photography. Now, some specific examples of movement literature and art mostly from the late 19th and 20th centuries.

 

We will start with an iconic image of Jim Crow at its worst, a gruesome lynching in 1930. Lynchings are almost synonymous with the South, but this one occurred much farther north, in Indiana. Indiana was a hotbed of Klan activity in the 1920s. On August 6, 1930, a crowd estimated at 4,000 white people gathered around the jail in Marion, Indiana. They were after three young black men, accused of killing a white man and raping his girlfriend. They came with a rope. They overpowered the Sheriff, broke open the cells with a sledgehammer, and dragged out and beat Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, before hanging them from a nearby tree. Later, they dragged the third man to the tree and tied a rope around his neck, but returned him to the jail when someone called out that he was innocent. He eventually was convicted as being an accessory to murder and given a four year sentence. The other two, obviously, never received a trial. The girlfriend later recanted the rape claim. Lawrence Beitler was a local professional photographer. Normally, he did portraits and weddings and the like, but this night, he took his camera out to the scene a few hours after the lynching. Shipp and Smith were still hanging from the ropes, and part of the crowd was still milling around. Beitler's photograph is horrific, showing both the hanging bodies and part of the crowd. Some look happy, others eye the camera without notable expressions. One man points to the bodies. No one looks upset. That is almost as terrifying as the sight of the corpses. We don't know how Beitler felt about the scene, but it appears to have been more of a business opportunity to him. He sold thousands of these photographs at 50 cents apiece. Item 3. Priced at $1,500.

 

Item 45 will be a favorite for those who like left-leaning folk singers. It's a copy of American Favorite Ballads: Tunes and Songs as Sung by Pete Seeger, published in 1961. Seeger was a compatriot of Woody Guthrie, a voice for the poor and working people. He was one of the four founders of the Weavers in 1948, who skyrocketed in popularity, only to be shot down and practically banned from performing during the Red Scare of the early 1950s. Seeger would go on to have a long singing career, continuing to be a voice for the forgotten up until his death in 2014 at age 94. Seeger inscribed this songbook "For Fred - who knows all these songs already." Of course he did. Fred was Fred Hellerman, one of the other founders and the last surviving Weaver when he died in 2016. $750.

 

George Washington would have been horrified to see his name associated with this group. Item 67 is a broadside headed, George Washington Birthday Exercises - Mass Demonstrations For True Americanism at Madison Square Garden Monday, February 20, 1939. This self-styled "Pro-American Rally" was put on by the German American Bund, little more than a front organization for the Nazis. It is addressed "To All American Patriots: The increasingly violent, malicious and poisonous attempts to silence and cripple the German American Bund by lying press and radio propaganda... prove that the communistic and other subversive, Jewish-Marxist powers directing these persecutions are in mortal fear of the Bund's reaching and enlightening those Americans still in the dark concerning the red scourge!" It goes on to say "The Bund is an Organization of American Citizens unequivocally committed to the Defense of the Flag, Constitution and Sovereignty of these United States..." The broadside claims that "100,000,000 Aryan (White Gentile) Americans" are "the Only means of preserving Independence and the Christian Culture and Civilization of the Country today!" This stuff sounds so eerily and frighteningly similar to words spoken today. What was it Santayana said about those not learning from history being doomed to repeat it? $1,250.

 

Now we get to see the handiwork of the Bund's "pro-American" friends. Item 71 is an album titled Conc. Camp Dachau, published by the International Office for the Former Concentration Camp Dachau after the war. The album was assembled by The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and it documents what went on at this concentration camp. It contains 41 images of the facilities and grounds at the camp, liberated prisoners, the crematory, and "a staggering number of corpses." It also contains photos of the Nazi officers at their subsequent trials. Text is written in English, French, Polish, and German, so that many will understand. $1,000.

 

The Communists were noted for many things, but fine press work wasn't one of them. Indeed, life was supposed to be austere, dull, and undistinguished, the basic everyone is the same philosophy where there was little wealth to be shared among people other than party leaders. At least, that was life in the mother country, the Soviet Union. However, this broadside, published in the Stalin era, was printed in America. It came from the Alameda County Committee (Oakland, California), Communist Party. It is headed A Re-Declaration of Independence On July 4th, 1937. It was hand-printed in only 50 copies. It is an anti-fascist, pro-working class declaration, saying, "This day we declare our independence of the old-line politicians, and highly resolve to build a People's Democracy, free of the taint of greed and exploitation." Item 63. $850.

 

This is a very strange take on baseball and other trading cards. Item 103 is a collection of 25 trading cards of 25 Japanese Class A war criminals, photographed at Sugamo Prison, 1946-1947. These were reputedly sold on behalf of the prisoners to generate pocket change to buy cigarettes and personal items. The cards also have a word or two listing the prisoners' sentences, such as "Life," "20 Years," or "Hanged." The most notable inmate depicted in Hideki Tojo, Japan's Prime Minister during the Second World War, who was hanged in 1948. $1,500.

 

Lorne Bair Rare Books may be reached at 540-665-0855 or info@lornebair.com. Their website is www.lornebair.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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