Rare Book Monthly Articles - July - 2012 Issue

A Case for Buying from Dealers

Buying books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera is no great task.  There are millions of items available today.  Finding material that is highly relevant to a collecting strategy and requiring that price roughly equal value is oh so much more difficult, buying from dealers who most often have such material  - at prices that provide a reasonable chance to someday sell for a profit  - even more of a challenge. Locating common material is often easy and does not require the help of knowledgeable dealers.  For run-of-the-mill rarities listing sites and eBay provide thousands of opportunities.  Le...

Here's What to Expect at Larry McMurtry's 300,000-Volume “Last Book Sale.”

The huge auction at Larry McMurtry's Booked Up bookshop is set to go next month, and we are starting to get a look at the material that will be available. This is no small matter. In fact, it is a ...

Washington and Lincoln Dominate the Rooms

With all the bad news coming out of Washington, D. C. it is easy to think that all things Washington are in decline or at least under siege but it’s not so.  George continues to do very well.  Evid...

Seller Beware: Who really owns it?

As a dealer and sometime collector of vintage and antiquarian Hawaiiana since 1979, I’ve run into many interesting collections of books, maps, prints and photos and related antique paper. I’ve boug...

Academia’s Dirty Little Secret: De-Accession by Dumpster

While I was working on this month’s AE story “Seller Beware” I posted some comments to an on-line book listserve describing my recent experience that went something like this: In the 1970s a little...

Theft Report – Two Thousand Library Books and One Book of Mormon

Details of a massive book theft from a very old Italian library have emerged over the past two months. It's a case that must be leaving scholars, and police, with their heads shaking. How could thi...

A Fascination with Disaster in Ulster County

Read some history books and you’ll notice they tend to focus on triumphs, jumping from one signal event to the next, illuminating reconciliation following the Civil War rather than wartime casualti...

A Six Figure Library Book Saved in the Nick of Time

This issue of AE Monthly was not meant to be the library deaccession issue, though it seems to have unintentionally turned out that way. Elsewhere in this issue are disturbing stories of libraries ...

37th Annual Booth Book Sale July 14th - 18th

An Extensive Selection of Rare and Collectible Material offered -- Book dealers may have 10,000 books and hope to sell 300 or 400 a year.  To do this they post online, issue catalogues and display...

Barnes & Noble Weighs in on E-Book Price Fixing Claims

Barnes Noble has joined many in the publishing industry in the battle against Amazon over electronic book pricing. This battle bears many similarities to that of a generation ago which pitted Wal-...

Travel in Jamaica: Buccaneers at the National Library in Downtown Kingston, in the Year 2012

PART II : Buccaneers’ Paradise. BOOK 1: Richard Blome, A Description of the Island of Jamaica, With the Other Isles and Territories in America, to Which the English are Related (London, 1678). T...

Class Action Set in Endless Google Books Case

The latest ruling in the unending Google Books case was handed down a few weeks ago. It was more of a technical than substantive issue involved, but it once again highlights the absurdity of the Am...

The James Gilbert Baker Science Library Available from Eveleigh Books

If James Gilbert Baker had been as good at shooting a basketball, swinging a bat, or reading lines before a camera, as he was in his chosen field, you would know him well. However, he was a scienti...

11 New Catalogues Reviewed

For July, we review 11 new bookseller catalogues in AE Monthly. Shapero Rare Books brings us back to the beginning of time, at least in terms of printing, with 75 incunables. Libreria Antiquaria Ra...

Nineteen Electronic Catalogues Posted to AEM Section III over the past month

Nineteen catalogues have posted since May 28th to Section III of AE Monthly.  This section offers dealers a cost efficient way to distribute their PFD catalogues and catalogue links efficiently.  T...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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
  • 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

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