What happens after you enter a search? You get a page full of matches. For each match, it will show you the auction house, the auction date, the title and author of the book, a partial description, and the estimated price. After the partial description, you will see the word “more”. Click this to see the complete description and other details about it (such as printing place and date). Here you will also find a link to the auction house’s website if you wish to place a bid. Additionally, you will see your keywords highlighted in red or yellow so you can instantly see where in the description your keywords were found. There’s no need to say any more about the search results here, as it is all very easy and self-evident. No training whatsoever is required.

Now just a quick comment about the auction houses. The AE Auction search covers live auctions as opposed to online ones such as eBay. There are dozens of them, running from the biggest names like Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Swann’s, to well-known American regional houses like Skinner’s, Pacific Book Auctions, Waverly’s, Baltimore, Butterfield’s and Dorothy Sloan, to many overseas houses such as Bonham’s, Bloomsbury and Bubb Kuyper. The list is far too long to cover here. While online auctions have a lot of old books, the truly rare and antiquarian books, especially when a complete collection is being offered, more often come up for sale at the live auctions. This is the material that has always been hard to see but has now been made very visible to everyone anywhere in the world with the AE Auction search . We believe this is one of the most important tools for book auctions and book collecting that has ever been developed.

One final note: subscribers to the AE Database and to MatchMaker will find the new auction search fits neatly together with these services. The AE Database provides the past history of books, through previous auctions, dealer catalogues, and bibliographies. It’s a necessary tool for determining an appropriate price/valuation for the new listings you find. MatchMaker enables you to do daily automated searches for your keywords without your having to re-enter them each time, and notifies you when new matches are found. It also does the same with eBay listings, plus provides automated searches for titles on Abebooks and more. An AE Database subscription (Research ) costs just $10 a month, while a combination AE Database and MatchMaker (Octavo, Quarto, Folio) starts at just $17.50. It costs that much to park your car overnight at the airport, or to have half a meal at your favorite restaurant, provided you don’t order a drink, appetizer, or dessert. If you aren’t impressed, just cancel when the month is over. To try these services, click " Become a Member” on the top toolbar or this link: www.americanaexchange.com/registration/registration.asp. If you are a free member and would like to try some of the paid services, click this link or “ Membership+” on the top toolbar. And, if you are not quite ready to commit for a month, please click the link and sign up for our free membership so we can tell you about any further services we have when they become available. Either way, access to the auction search is free. It’s not a paid service.

Now, it’s time to give the auction search a try. Test it out for a little while and you will quickly discover how to use it to best suit your needs. Here goes:
http://www.americanaexchange.com/auctions/auctionlistings.asp