Rare Book Monthly Articles - July - 2009 Issue

Perspective on Books and the Net

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 scale of the venues for old and collectible books is exponentially increasing, the number of dealers, number of books, the number of auction houses and sales all incr...

W. Graham Arader: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"

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 selec...

<i>In The News:</i> Crime and Lawsuits

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 whe...

Google Books: A Tool for Book Collectors

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 purpos...

Browsers as Servers: Is Change Coming to Bookselling?

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 serve...

$5-$10 Million Cache of Books and Other Antiquities, Found in Small Chicago Home, Returned to Italy

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...

Bibliopolis and Bookhound - Birds of a Feather

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 bookse...

Auction Updates: By email every Sunday night

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...

Long Missing Lincoln Letter Returns Home

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 ...

Great Gatsby! There is a Light for Collectible Books

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 ...

Exploiting Marketable Skills - The Bookseller as Knowledge Manager

By Renée 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 r...

An Update on Summer Possibilities

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...

Now Available: The Book All Collectors of L. Frank Baum and Oz Must Have

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 t...

19 New Catalogues Up for Review

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 litera...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Isaac Newton on chemistry and matter, and alchemy, Autograph Manuscript, "A Key to Snyders," 3 pp, after 1674. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Exceptionally rare first printing of Plato's Timaeus. Florence, 1484. $50,000 - $80,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: On the Philosophy of Self-Interest: Adam Smith's copy of Helvetius's De l'homme, Paris, 1773. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: "Magical Calendar of Tycho Brahe" - very rare hermetic broadside. Engraved by Merian for De Bry. c.1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Author's presentation issue of Einstein's proof of Relativity, "Erklärung der Perihelbewegung des Merkur aus der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie." 1915. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: First Latin edition of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Paris, 1520. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: De Broglie manuscript on the nature of matter in quantum physics, 3 pp, 1954. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Tesla autograph letter signed on electricty and electromagnetic theory. 1894. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Heinrich Hertz scientific manuscript on his mentor Hermann Von Helmholtz, 1891. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: The greatest illustrated work in Alchemy: Micheal Maier's Atalanta Fugiens. Oppenheim, 1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Illustrated Alchemical manuscript, a Mysterium Magnum of the Rosicurcians, 18th-century. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Rare Largest Paper Presentation Copy of Newton's Principia, London, 1726. The third and most influential edition. $60,000 - $90,000
  • Doyle, May 1: Thomas Jefferson expresses fears of "a war of extermination" in Saint-Dominigue. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An exceptional presentation copy of Fitzgerald's last book, in the first issue dust jacket. $25,000 to $35,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The rare first signed edition of Dorian Gray. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The Prayer Book of Jehan Bernachier. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Van Dyck's Icones Principum Virorum Doctorum. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The magnificent Cranach Hamlet in the deluxe binding by Dõrfner. $7,000 to $10,000.
    Doyle, May 1: A remarkable unpublished manuscript of a voyage to South America in 1759-1764. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Bouchette's monumental and rare wall map of Lower Canada. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An rare original 1837 abolitionist woodblock. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An important manuscript breviary in Middle Dutch. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An extraordinary Old Testament manuscript, circa 1250. $20,000 to $30,000.
  • 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
  • Jeschke Jadi
    Auction 151
    Saturday, April 27, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 546. Christoph Jacob Trew. Plantae selectae, 1750-1773.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 70. Thomas Murner. Die Narren beschwerung. 1558.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 621. Michael Bernhard Valentini. Museum Museorum, 1714.
    Jeschke Jadi
    Auction 151
    Saturday, April 27, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 545. Sander Reichenbachia. Orchids illustrated and described, 1888-1894.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 1018. Marinetti, Boccioni, Pratella Futurism - Comprehensive collection of 35 Futurist manifestos, some of them exceptionally rare. 1909-1933.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 634. August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof. 3 Original Drawings, around 1740.
    Jeschke Jadi
    Auction 151
    Saturday, April 27, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 671. Jacob / Picasso. Chronique des Temps, 1956.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 1260. Mary Webb. Sarn. 1948. Lucie Weill Art Deco Binding.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 508. Felix Bonfils. 108 large-format photographs of Syria and Palestine.
    Jeschke Jadi
    Auction 151
    Saturday, April 27, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 967. Dante Aligheri and Salvador Dali. Divina Commedia, 1963.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 1316. Tolouse-Lautrec. Dessinateur. Duhayon binding, 1948.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 27: Lot 1303. Regards sur Paris. Braque, Picasso, Masson, 1962.

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