San Francisco Book and Ephemera Fair in the Bay Area over Super Bowl Weekend
- by Bruce E. McKinney
While the ABAA hosts its California Book Fair in Pasadena in southern California a week later, in northern California in San Mateo at the County Event Center - Fiesta Hall for the first time, Nancy Johnson’s San Francisco Antiquarian Book Print & Paper Fair is providing an appealing 2-day experience ahead of the Super Bowl on Friday and Saturday February 5th and 6th, immediately under the noses of the throngs who venture into the region mistakenly thinking the only book they’ll need or want on SB Weekend is a game program. History suggests the more interesting printed material will be up for purchase at this nearby fair where close to 140 exhibitors will offer collectibles of all descriptions and along with their personal perspectives on the nearby football game where wobbles and goal lines will elicit screams and groans. In the canyons of booksellers in nearby San Mateo the wows will be reserved for significant transactions.
To permit both exhibitors and attendees to buy and sell rare material while preserving the opportunity to attend the game Ms. Johnson has tastefully and tactfully set the show dates as Friday and Saturday. The book crowd can then descend twenty miles south on Sunday to experience the Super Bowl first hand or simply pack up and return home.
In the rare book, manuscript, map and ephemera fields the pace is more leisurely than football but the feeling a day later infinitely better. For those attending the “bowl” there will be memories and receipts. For they who buy at the book fair, at minimum they’ll have interesting material and for many, perhaps most, some collectibles that will appreciate in value. Compare that with the Super Bowl ticket stub [typically $4,000 all in] and your receipts for $12.- hot dogs and the book fair emerges as a convincing value proposition.
In mitigation I’ll mention that the roof on the 49er’s stadium can open while the roof on the San Mateo County Event Center center does not. But as we are in the season of el Nino the secure roof sounds like a good idea.
Sotheby’s, July 14: Henry De La Beche. "Awful Changes," 1830. $6,000 to $9,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 11]. Flight Plan, Complete Original Printing Signed by Buzz Aldrin. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Thomas Alva Edison. Documents Establishing and Ending the Edison Electric Railway Company. $20,000 to $30,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Richard P. Feynman. Feynman's Lectures on Gravitation 1-16, Including the Original Transcriptions of Lectures 12-16 by Morinigo and Wagner, With Richard Feynman's Manuscript Notations, 1971. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 9]. A Group of Manuals and Mission Documents used by Stuart Roosa as a member of the Astronaut Support Crew. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [BYTE: The Small Systems Journal]. A collection of early foundational issues of Byte: The Small Systems Journal, with rare hardcover editions. $5,000 to $8,000.
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Inundation papyrus. P.Michael 4, the ‘Inundation papyrus’, a geographical account of the Nile near Canopus, in Greek, remains of two columns from a manuscript scroll on papyrus, Egypt, second century CE. £12,000-18,000
Forum, July 16: Book of Hours, use of Sarum, manuscript on vellum, 6 full-page miniatures, with famous Middle English inscriptions, Southern Netherlands for the English market, [c.1430]. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Qu'ran, Arabic manuscript on burnished, stencilled, and gold-flecked paper, 447ff., Sultanate Gujarat, Ahmadabad, [after 1411 but no later than 1442]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Turner (William). A New boke of the natures and properties of all wines that are commonly vsed here in England, rare first edition of the first English book on wine, By William Seres, 1568. £20,000-£30,000
Forum, July 16: Spenser (Edmund). The Faerie Queene. first edition, Printed [by John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Shakespeare (William). The Comedie of Errors, extracted from the first folio, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1953. £40,000-60,000
Forum, July 16: d'Agoty (Jacques-Fabien Gautier). Anatomie de la Tête, first edition, Paris, chez le Sieur Gautier, 1748. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 16: Martial Arts.- Lee (Bruce). 'Praying Mantis style' Kung Fu book, containing numerous annotations, diagrams and graphs in Bruce Lee's hand, c. 1960. £50,000-70,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Warre (Capt. Henry James). Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, rare hand-coloured issue, 1848. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Norie (John William). The Marine Atlas, or Seaman's Complete Pilot for all the principal places in the known world..., 1826. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Mao Tse-tung.- Kim Il-sung.-[Note book for visitors from China to Korea], signed by Mao and Kim, [Beijing, 1954]. £10,000-15,000
