We do not mourn the turning of leaves in fall neither do we feel their final passage from glorious life to cold earth. We do not mourn but we remember, their sound in the trees, the rustle of leaves a choir in spring that begins to slip away over summer, on a certain path to extinction come fall.
Some flowers bloom early and others late, some leaves parade their robust certainty only to fall to the first chill. Some leaves turn early and others late.
For Bob Fleck, the bookseller, his leaves fell early, at a few months short of 70, a mere pup in a profession that sees no distinction between youth and experience that does not favor age. He had been good at his business for 40 years; we expected 20 more.
He made his mark first with bibliographies, first to sell them and later to print new titles, updates and revisions.
When I became an active collector again in 1991 Bill Reese sent me a list of 50 something indexes and bibliographies that I would need. Bill had perhaps a dozen available. For the rest he suggested Oak Knoll Books and Bob Fleck who he mentioned by name. By 2000 I had most of them and was beginning to plan an online reference site.
This project, first Americana Exchange and later Rare Book Hub, would represent a threat to Oak Knoll Books but Bob was philosophical, “several are already doing it,” and he did not complain. Then, after AE was launched, he made an extraordinary offer, to sell me a complete 20-year priced-run of Sotheby’s book auctions for the period 1920 to 1940. His price: $2,000, consideration that amounted to a gift.
Later he would approach me about combining American and European databases, he looking for a way to subordinate such records to the historically more primary dealer requirements. We could not do it. Auction records had been a tended private garden for decades but we saw the inevitability of a complete worldwide history of auctions going back generations that would be equally accessible to libraries, collectors and dealers.
Today this comes to pass. It disrupted his business and he never complained. He was rare, in fact rarer than his rarest book, a good friend to a force that continues to transform his field. He was remarkable and I am grateful that he lived.
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Leland Little, Jan. 22: The First Issue of Robert Frost's A Boy's Will, In Extremely Scarce Binding.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: Knight's An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: First Edition of Locke's Important Treatise Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: The Richly Illustrated First French Edition of Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Orientales.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: Scarce First Issue of An Account of the Province of Carolina in America, Finely Bound and With Celebrated John Speed Map.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: Humphrey's An Historical Account, Complete with Scarce Folding Maps.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: First Edition of Chamberlain's Scarce Civil War Memoir The Passing of the Armies.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: A Rare Photograph of David Bruce Brown and #48 Fiat.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: George Cruikshank (England, 1792-1878), Archive of Sketches, Notes, and Letters.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: Extremely Scarce Copy of Die Samländische Ode (The Samland Ode), Signed by Max Pechstein.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: Andy Warhol's The Thirteen Most Wanted Men Exhibition Catalogue.
Leland Little, Jan. 22: Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937), Every Building on the Sunset Strip.
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Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
RareBookBuyer.com Specialized in Purchasing
Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
RareBookBuyer.com Specialized in Purchasing
Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
