Rare Book Monthly Articles - October - 2021 Issue

From Here to Eternity: Collecting in your old age

Collections start randomly, and some day end.  Most don’t start out to be epic, rather they often turn out to be simply episodes.  The collector’s experience shapes what happens next. Money, time and intellectual acuity play roles.  Partner preferences matter as does luck.  The early sources you rely on are crucial.  Bill Reese influenced two of my collections; The New World to 1625, and the other, The American West to 1890.  He provided perspective on how to intelligently collect, providing reading lists and sources when/if the material was not within his personal experience.  For me, col...

What Is Going On With These Astronomical Prices for Collectibles?

What is going on here? We have been operating a collectibles site for 20 years, focus on books and traditional paper ephemera, such as broadsides and manuscripts. The books have been a bit soft the...

McBride Rare Books Welcomes Joe Fay!

McBride Rare Books recently announced that Joe Fay whose career in the old and rare book field, now in its 21st year , has joined the principals at McBride; Teri Osborn and James McBride to be thei...

The Luckiest Bookseller Alive: A Career Biography of Joe Fay

Joe Fay recently joined the partnership that is McBride Rare Books (see here) so we asked him if he could provide us with his biography in the book trade. He did, and it is a fascinating journey, o...

Matchmaker: Necessary in the New Era

Why? The number of auctions for the rare book, manuscript, map and ephemera field has long been increasing, and finding and following lots relevant to your focus now needs more time to manage the ...

Sotheby’s to Auction Only Remaining First Printing of the Constitution in Private Hands Estimate $15/20 Million

NEW YORK, 17 September 2021 – This Constitution Day – exactly 234 years since America’s Founding Fathers signed the country’s most significant and lasting document – Sotheby’s announces a copy of T...

Birdman and Boinayel, The First Gods of Jamaica

As a long-time Jamaica fanatic, I was excited to come across an in-4° plate engraved by James Basire and entitled Antient Wooden Figures Found in Jamaica. It was, as the caption reads, “published b...

Confirmed. The Vinland Map is a Fake

A previously unknown map emerged in 1957 and it was thought to be one of the most important geographic discoveries in history, one might say greater than Christopher Columbus' “discovery” of Americ...

The Final Stretch for 2021: Projections & Implications

This article serves to examine the 2021 rare book and print auction data in order to describe how and why, in itself, this year has been extraordinary. In addition, the article examines why and how...

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce our October online sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce our October online sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts including Americana, open for bidding from Oct 1st to the 15th, with lots beginning to close at 10am...

Auction Technology Group to complete acquisition of LiveAuctioneers

In July we wrote about Auction Technology Group’s proposed acquisition of Live Auctioneers and on 29 September ATG has further announced the transaction is to complete subject to final approvals re...

500 Comics and Other Items Stolen from Florida State University Library

Almost 500 comic books and related material have been stolen from the Florida State University Library. Although just reported in the past couple of weeks, the thefts took place between March 17, 2...

Is It Too Soon to Collect Covid-19 Material?

It is not unusual for people to collect items related to terrible events, like wars, but usually they are of past, historic events. Is this one a little early? The Oxford University History of Scie...

The Ricky Jay Collection is Reappearing!

On October 27 and 28, Sotheby’s will devote four live auction sessions to The Ricky Jay Collection, the auction house’s largest live sale since the dispersal of the Robert S Pirie Library in 2015. ...

New Record Price for a Comic Book - $3.6 Million

Here we go again. Another record price in the sort-of books, paper ephemera category. Once more, a comic book has achieved a new record price - $3.6 million. If there is anything surprising here it...

Book Earrings

You don't often find original new products for book lovers, but here is one – book earrings. There is a seller on Etsy now selling earrings that look like books. From the pictures, they look realis...

Four New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

  This month we are reviewing four new bookseller catalogues. Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books has a catalogue of collecting culture, featuring manuscripts and early printed books, mostly illuminated. ...

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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