Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2017 Issue

Collections can get Complicated

I’ve known for many years that book collecting, if it was ever only books, is rarely books alone today.  Book collecting was once a huge field that required decades of experience.  Today informational databases approach Einstein levels of volume and complexity providing clear pictures of rarity and value while selling databases such as Abe Books and Biblio show enormous availability.  The word rare has always been a general term but the best databases today show it item by item, selling sites to tell you how many are available and RBH to tell you what the market is saying it’s worth.     ...

On Rare Book Hub: a reconsidered approach to Books for Sale

Over the past 15 years listing books on line has moved beyond the future into something embedded, like wallpaper, in the unfolding everyday reality of old and rare books.  Superlatives were common ...

The Hobby Lobby Case – Illegal Importation of Some of the World's Oldest Writings

A settlement has been reached in a smuggling case involving approximately 5,500 items from antiquity, some of the earliest "books" created, cuneiform tablets from the "cradle of civilization," toda...

Bedazzled by Burney: Sales of Frances Burney Books, Manuscripts & Images from the Paula Peyraud Collection

This month, Rare Book Hub guest writer, Maureen E. Mulvihill, has written a useful piece on continuing strong values in Frances Burney (her books, manuscripts, associated visual art). Burney, a pop...

U. S. Supreme Court to Rule on Attempt to Seize Ancient Persian Tablets from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute

This is the month where the earliest "books" - ancient clay tablets – make their way into the news, legal news in particular. Not only was a settlement reached in the Hobby Lobby case (see article ...

Summer: Searching in New York

The chance to visit New York City this past month reminded me anew that, for book collectors and those who do historical research both the New York Public Library and the New York Historical Societ...

Aug. 2: Vintage Posters at Swann including WWI Propaganda in honor of the 100th anniversary of the U.S.'s entry

As their 2016-2017 auction season comes to a close, Swann Auction Galleries is going out with a bang. Taking place tomorrow (from the time of this Rare Book Monthly publishing), August 2nd at 10:30...

MONA. This Is Not Your Typical Library Story

A three-story circular library has been proposed to house the collection of one of the more unusual book collectors you will ever find. His name is David Walsh, and he built his fortune the way vir...

Aug. 5: Baseball, Almanacs, Historical Documents and more at Case Antiques

Case Antiques, the Knoxville, Tennessee based auction house has since 2015 included their relevant auction records in Rare Book Hub’s Transaction History database. The category of collectible works...

A Time to be Cautious

You can kind of feel it, the disconcerting energy of anxiety.  It’s a different kind of thing; somehow tapping into our primordial instincts.  There’s a sense of risk in some quarters of America to...

Chastellux’s Voyages: An Aristocrat in America.

Like many “generous aristocrats1”, the well-born Marquis de Chastellux went to America in 1780 to fight on the side of the insurgents during the War of Independence (1775-1783). There he became acq...

AbeBooks Posts the Top 10 Highest Prices Paid in April-June 2017

It was a testament to just how crazy much money collectors will spend on their passion. Sadly, it was not a testament to what people will spend on books, which is much more reasonable (that is, les...

Summertime Fun & Browsing in the Book Arts

It’s August and in the Northern Hemisphere it’s Summer. Time for a little bookish RR.   With that in mind here are some large and small collections displayed online and brought together for your ...

The Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair in September

The rare book field is tradition laden.  The way things were is the way they will continue to be, that is unless you are Marvin Getman, the show promoter, who thinks carefully and works hard to ens...

The New York Academy of Medicine is Set to Help You Pass Your Hogwarts O.W.L Exam

Books are a place where fantasy intersects with reality. There is perhaps no better example than the most popular children's book series of this century, the Harry Potter books. They are filled wit...

Eight New Catalogues Reviewed for August

This month we review eight new catalogues. De Wolfe Wood and Michael Brown Rare Books are offering an early printing of photographs taken by Walker Evans in Cuba in 1933. He developed this set whi...

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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