By Bruce McKinney

These days the world of collectible books is a warren of categories - on line listings, shops on Main Street, catalogues on line and through the mail, presentations at trade shows, and auctions, both traditional and eBay. These categories function independently. They sell to different customers - dividing the world of rare and collectible books into a mosaic of hundreds if not thousands of pieces.

The ...more

By Bruce McKinney

On June 19th the most recent and certainly not final chapter of the Graham Arader story was written in the auction rooms at Sotheby's, as they conducted a 202 lot sale of selected inventory from the storied archives of W. Graham Arader of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and Madison Avenue in New York. The sale realized $3.26 million. No doubt, many dealers wished for the sale to fail and were deeply disappointed ...more

By Michael Stillman

A couple of the more notable cases involving books and bookselling have been delayed or deleted. The case of Raymond Scott, of Durham, England, was postponed until August when his attorney informed the court that Mr. Scott was in the hospital, recovering from an unspecified operation. Scott is the gentleman who walked into the Folger Library in Washington last year with a copy of a Shakespeare First Folio ...more

By Bruce McKinney

I'm using Google Books to identify additional early [or old if you prefer] material for the Rondout & Kingston Wiki Bibliography that I'm building on AE. The subject and purpose are unimportant. You can search for anything for any purpose; for research, collecting or whatever. I am hopeful of finding additional material to add to the one hundred eleven items I've already identified, and given the magnitude ...more

By Michael Stillman

Opera, the somewhat obscure Norwegian internet browser and software designer, recently announced the development of a browser that also lets your computer function as a server. Yes, this article is related to books. Stay tuned. We will not get technical! A browser is the software on your computer that lets you access the internet and view all of those countless sites and web pages out there. A server is the ...more

By Michael Stillman

What the FBI has described as a "literal treasure trove of artifacts," 1,600 relics including over 1,000 books and manuscripts, has been returned to Italy. The collection was discovered in a small suburban Chicago home two years ago. Meanwhile, another 2,000 items whose origin or ownership could not be determined have been returned to the estate of the man possessing this amazing trove. As described by the ...more

By Karen Wright

I had been trying to download my antiquated Access book inventory to Bookhound 7c through Biblio.com off and on for months. Bibliopolis, creators of Bookhound, allows the bookseller to download Bookhound 7c free through Biblio.com. I really liked the features and the way it worked, but every time I tried to download my inventory into it, I ran into a snag. Biblio couldn't download from my inventory either, ...more

By Bruce McKinney

Every 18 hours, more or less, a documented traditional auction completes somewhere in the world. The sale may be in North America, Europe, Central America or Australia; in New York, Sydney, London, Paris, Los Angeles or in any of the other places documented book auctions are conducted. A few days later the sold and unsold lots are confirmed and realized prices added, the sale then archived in the Americana ...more

By Michael Stillman

An interesting Lincoln letter, missing from the National Archives for many decades, perhaps longer, made its way home recently, a gift from a collector who purchased it from an online auction in 2006, unaware of its history. The letter was written on November 14, 1863, just five days before the President delivered his Gettysburg Address. While this letter is not so momentous, and is even briefer still than ...more

By Michael Stillman

This has been a tough year for the book trade. Our own figures, gathered from auction results around the world, indicate a drop of 30%-plus in prices since the peak a little over a year ago. Not that this is specifically related to books. One look at your mutual funds or 401k portfolio will tell you this represents the state of the economy more than the state of books. Just try to sell your house! So, it ...more

By Renee Magriel Roberts

I can't seem to make the same dinner twice. Can't do it. I know that homemaker skills may have traditionally had the pot roast night or the fish night, with well-honed recipes, perfected over the years. I just can't get my arms around that kind of planning. I like to look at the available ingredients in an ad hoc way, sort of re-invent the meal as a one-time-only event. It is a standing joke at my house ...more

By Bruce McKinney

We now live in the internet age. This is the same age that just ten years ago was called the television age, which wrested the title from the "age of print" in the 1960s. The "age of information" of course scoffs at all these distinctions which it points out is just putting data in one pocket or another of the pants they have been wearing from the beginning of time. Where there is information there ...more

By Michael Stillman

A book has been published that is an absolute must for anyone who collects L. Frank Baum, the Oz books, or anything closely related. The title is The Book Collector's Guide to L. Frank Baum and Oz, written by Paul R. Bienvenue with Robert E. Schmidt, and is published by March Hare Books of El Segundo, California. It even contains a foreword from the author's great-grandson, Robert A. Baum, who knew ...more

This month, we review 19 new bookseller catalogues. Literature is the focus of the William Reese Company, while James Pepper Rare Books features literature and film, James Cummins Bookseller literature and Americana. David Lesser Antiquarian Books offers strictly Americana.

The 19th Century Shop has a collection of important books and manuscripts. The Raab Collection presents historic, signed ...more