Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2004 Issue

The Wild Southwest<br>From Almagre Books

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Item 516 is an Altus, Oklahoma, printing of Elda Roberts’ A History of the Roberts Family or The Stubborn Fisherman. It’s a tribute and biography of her husband, George Roberts, a deep-sea fisherman and guide. Almagre in their description notes that “George was known for never wearing shoes: he could write his name with a pen between the toes & strike matches on his foot calluses.” That’s more information than we need. Never, never let your spouse write your biography. $45.

If you’d rather buy a collection than add to one, item 627 is a collection of 127 titles in 144 volumes about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. About 75% are in Spanish and were printed in Mexico, with the remainder in English. Publication dates range from 1911 to the 1980s with the bulk being from the period 1930-1960. $2,500.

Billy McGinty was an Oklahoma cowboy who served with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and was known as a great bronc-rider. He also promoted what some consider to be the first country and western band, Billy McGinty’s Oklahoma Cow Boys (later Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cow Boys). The band was enormously popular in the 1920s and 30s. McGinty is now a member of the “Cowboy Hall of Fame.” Item 265 is The Old West: As Told by Billy McGinty, a 1937 work published in Ripley, Oklahoma. It covers his work on numerous ranches and time as a deputy sheriff in Clifton, Arizona. $600.

Price Daniel, Jr., was born with the right pedigree for Texas politics. He was a great-great-great grandson of Sam Houston, and his namesake father, Price Daniel, Sr., served as governor and senator for the state. Daniel married into the right society and reached the post of Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He would advance no further. His marriage broke down and Daniel remarried a Dairy Queen waitress, who would in time shoot him to death. In a memorable trial, legendary Texas lawyer “Racehorse” Haynes would get her acquitted on the grounds the shooting was accidental. The scandalous story would eventually become a movie, “Bed of Lies,” with Chris Cooper as Daniel, Susan Dey (former Partridge family daughter) as Vickie Daniel, and future Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson as Haynes. Now you’re thinking this next item must be a book about this controversial Texan. Wrong. Item 573 is a collection of Price Daniel, Junior’s, book catalogues. You see, Daniel was also a bookseller specializing in Texana, and this is a group of his catalogues from the 1960s. $90.

Almagre Books may be reached by phone at 812-334-0465 or by email at wwroth@kiva.net.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Album Containing Four Signed Photographs of Albert Einstein, With Eleven Additional Einstein Photographs, From His Journey to Japan Aboard the S.S. Kitano Maru, 1922. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Fred Freeman. Illustration of the Channel Tunnel’s British Portal (Presumably at Folkestone), ca. 1958. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Wolfgang Kurt Hermann Panofsky Group of Awards. Pief Panofsky's 1961 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, National Medal of Science, Enrico Fermi Award, and Others. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Seymour Cray; Cray-3. Manuscript Cray-3 Logbook, 1989-90. — The Only Significant Cray Manuscript to Come to Auction. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.
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