Rare Book Monthly Articles - May - 2016 Issue

The New York Book Fair: Great Fun

  One of the great pleasures of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair in New York every April is its certainty.  Life has its ups and downs but somehow each April the leading dealers, institutions and collectors find a way to get past life’s debris to rally around the material on which the field thrives; rare, beautiful and unusual works on paper.  In some years events in the real world crowd out the joy and pleasure in the Park Avenue Armory, in others the skies are clear, the daffodils are out, and smiles are everywhere.  The 2016 NYABF goes into the records as a very strong event, as David...

An Open Letter to the Trustees of the Armory

Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue New York, New York 10065   Dear Ms. Robertson;   Concerning the Armory and its relationship to the prin...

A Shakespeare First Folio, Long Lost, Is Found

A long lost copy of Shakespeare's First Folio has been discovered, in just the sort of place you would most likely expect to find one – in the forgotten corner of a Scottish castle on the Isle of B...

Winnie the Pooh celebrates 90th Anniversary in 2016

"Winnie-the-Pooh," (a bear of very little brain) turns 90 this year. The fictional English bear and other characters created by A.A. Milne first appeared in print in 1926 in a small volume that was...

A Foundation and a Museum Battle Over Maurice Sendak's Estate

The dispute over the estate of children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak has turned from ugly to downright personal, according to an article recently published by the Philadelphia Inqui...

British Bookseller Brutally Murdered

A British bookseller was brutally murdered in his Oxford home early last month. Adrian Greenwood, who was also a historian, antique seller, and writer, was found dead in the hallway of his home by ...

Cartouche, or The Thieves of the 5th Republic

The economic crisis, the Panama Papers affair, the Protection of trade secrets law and the many financial scandals lately revealed in France have weakened the current 5th Republic and generated a g...

May 25: Landmark Abolitionist Material and Americana at Sotheby's New York

It's not often the autographs of nearly a quarter of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence are available in a single sale. Implausibly, this fact isn't even the biggest story of said s...

The London Antiquarian Book Fair: Live at Olympia

What New York is to the new world London is to the old.  In May, Thursday -Saturday the 26th to the 28th, 180 dealers from the United Kingdom and beyond will meet again at the National convention h...

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book & Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary. The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book and Paper Arts Fair, presented by the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the U...

Tenth Annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair Set for June 3-4

The tenth annual Rose City Book Paper Fair has been scheduled for Friday, June 3, and Saturday, June 4 this year. The City of Roses is Portland, Oregon, and every spring booksellers and collectors...

Yet Another Book Theft – This Time $200,000 Worth of Comics

Another month, another book theft. The stories are distressingly repetitive. This month it is comic books, the books we collected as kids and our mothers threw away. They didn't understand. Actuall...

Laws of Baseball

Recently SCP Auctions, who specialize in sports memorabilia, sold “Laws of Base Ball” for $3.26 million.  It’s a great price although 25% less than the same house sold, in 2012, a Babe Ruth 1920 je...

Its All in the Name

The answer to struggling booksellers' sales issues is so simple and obvious it is a wonder so few have picked up on this before. The answer comes to us from Melbourne, Australia, where high rents o...

17 Booksellers' Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we have 17 book catalogues to review. A wide range of subjects for collectors are covered by these selections. Dr. Jorn Gunther Rare Books offers a spectacular collection of early bibles...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Gonnelli
    Auction 51
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 14st 2024
    Gonnelli: Leonard Bramer, The descent from the cross, 1634. Starting price 3200€
    Gonnelli: Gustav Hjalmar de Morner Karel, Rome’s Carnival, 1820. Starting price 1000€
    Gonnelli: Various Authors, Mater Dolorosa, 1700. Starting price 200€
    Gonnelli: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carcere Oscura, 1790. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli: Jan Brueghel, Marine fauna view, 1620 ca. Starting price 28000€
    Gonnelli: Ippolito Scarsella, Mary and Christ with Sant Rocco and Arch-Angel Michele,1615. Starting price 8000€
    Gonnelli: Hans Sebald Beham, Adam and Eve, 1543. Starting price 600€
    Gonnelli: Francesco Burani, Baccanale, 1630. Starting Price 280€
    Gonnelli: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Plance from Ventiquattr’ore, 1675. Starting price 800€
    Gonnelli: Giuseppe Angeli, Livorno’s Plan, 1793. Starting price 240€
    Gonnelli: XIV Century Artist, Capital “N” letter, 1350 ca. Starting price 340€
  • 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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