Rare Book Monthly
Energy in the Auction Rooms
Even between sales the back row looked ready to bid.
A few of the important items, both of which sold at the reserve, were the William Heartsill which brought $30,000 and the David Woodman which brought $15,000. Here are how they were described:
28. HEARTSILL, W. W. Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army.... [Marshall: Privately printed, 1876]. 61 original albumen photographs (portraits, including Heartsill in his leopard-skin britches). 8vo, original black cloth with silver lettering and ruling on spine. First edition, limited edition (100 copies). Basic Texas Books 89: "The rarest and most coveted book on the American Civil War... One of the most vivid and intimate accounts of Civil War battle-life that has survived." Howes H380. ($30,000-50,000)
64. WOODMAN, David. Guide to Texas Emigrants. Boston, 1835. Copper-engraved plate, folding copper-engraved map with original hand-coloring. 12mo, modern three-quarter morocco over marbled boards. First edition. Fifty Texas Rarities 12. Graff 4737. Howes W647. Phillips, Sporting Books, p. 413. Sabin 105111. Streeter 1177. Vandale 197. ($15,000-30,000)
The second Sloan sale, No. 15, was 225 lots of Californiana, the collection of Dan Volkmann of San Francisco. Two hundred and five lots sold at auction and in the following few days. The aggregate hammer price was $914,335 and the average lot realization $4,460. Lot 132, an unsold lot from the Volkmann Zamorano sale two years ago again failed to find a buyer at the $225,000 reserve which Ms. Sloan acknowledged after the sale, was set by the consignor, not by the auction house and was linked to what he paid rather than to the current market value. Even as the lot went unsold, Ms. Sloan asked for offers from the floor. None were forthcoming although three offers, after the sale, have since been reported. Mr. Volkmann will apparently continue to own this item. An example of this map is featured in Schwartz and Ehrenberg's "The Mapping of America" on page 277 [1980 edition].
Ms. Sloan, veteran auctioneer and book dealer, expressed satisfaction. "We sold 89% of the lots in both sales. This suggests our estimates and the market are in sync." In 2004, on average among the almost 400 auctions AE covered, 75% of lots offered in book sales sold.
