Rare Book Monthly
Articles - January - 2006 Issue
The <b>AE</b> Top 500 Book Auction Results For 2005!
Getting your tail reattached is easily worth $144,000; right, Eeyore?
We know the anticipation must be getting unbearable now, and everyone is always looking to count down a top ten list. Just a moment. First, a look at some of the items that did not quite make it to the top, but aren't too shabby either. Here we go.
At the bottom of the list is a $100,000 broadside reward for John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices for the murder of Abraham Lincoln. $72,000. The same price would have brought you a collection of 48 postcards from the 1939 opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, signed by the likes of Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Honus Wagner, and many more. Number 479 is an inscribed first edition of Tolkien's Hobit, rediscovered by a new generation through the magic of film. $78,000. A Jefferson letter defending the American entrance into the War of 1812, a photo album from the 1936 Olympics by photographer/Nazi apologist Leni Riefenstahl, and Babe Ruth's 1930 baseball player's contract sold for $84,000 apiece. Ruth was paid less than that, $80,000, to play for the Yankees for the following two seasons.
Robert E. Lee's signed farewell to his troops, a day after the Appomattox surrender, sold for $90,000. A signed first American edition of Huckleberry Finn brought $108,000. John Peter Zenger's account of his own trial, which established the principle that no one can be convicted for libel for speaking the truth, sold for $120,000. Mary Shelley's first edition Frankenstein brought roughly the same. A hand-colored 1595 Ortelius atlas came in at $131,000. A first edition of the Origin of the Species, still seemingly controversial in America, went for $132,000. An original pen and ink drawing of Christopher Robin nailing Eeyore's tail back on for Winnie-the-Pooh brought $144,000.
Shakespeare folios are becoming very hard to get. It took $156,000 last year just to get a fourth folio. One of the foundations of Americana, a Lewis and Clark first edition, cost the same. Ditto for a McKenney and Hall North American Indians. A one-leaf Isaac Newton signed manuscript brought $163,000. The first printing of the U.S. Constitution in the Pennsylvania Packet hammered down at $207,225. An inscribed first of Walden by Thoreau tipped in at $216,000. A copy of The Boke of Hawkynge and Huntynge and Fysshynge, the earliest printed fishing book, brought $228,000. Philobiblion, the first book on book collecting (1473) sold for $240,000. It took $262,400 to win a letter from the obscure President William Henry Harrison to his wife. Why so pricey? It is one of the few documents Harrison wrote as president, as he died 30 days into office.
The first printing (outside of newspapers) of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was sold for $307,200. An autographed manuscript of Schumann's Second Symphony took in $626,000 for its owner. Lincoln is back again with a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which emancipated $688,000 from the wallet of its purchaser. But, enough for the small stuff. The time has come for the top ten. So, without wasting any further time, we now proceed with the top ten book and book-related items sold at auction in 2005.
