Biblio, Bibliopoly, Bibliophile: Just Who Are These B's?
- by Michael Stillman
Books & Collectibles offers a clean search for primarily Australian material.
Books & Collectibles. This is another overseas site, from an American point of view, but not one heavy on American dealers. Yes there are some, and some European ones too, but this is an Australian site, and most of its booksellers are Australian shops. There are 229 dealers, and listings are said to be 2.5 million. This is not by itself a large number, but for a site dominated by Australian dealers, that has to be a healthy quantity. There is no need for me to say which collectors in particular should go to this site since the answer is obvious.
Naturally, it would be unfair to grade this site based on a search for my test book, Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. However, I'm not fair, so I go ahead and try it anyway. To my surprise, it finds 27 matches. And Books and Collectibles allows me to set the currency I want to use, so I am able to bring up the prices in American dollars. That's nice because Australian dollars are one of the few currencies left that still make the Yankee dollar look valuable. The prices range from $4.70 for a "well worn....reading copy," to $473.98 for the 1871 (I assume first) Australian edition. No wonder Twain shows up here. He is universal.
Consistent with the site's makeup, despite this being an American title, 17 copies are offered by Australian dealers, versus 8 American and 2 British. Only the one copy was actually printed in Australia, with the rest closely divided between the U.S. and the U.K. In keeping with the dictates of fairness, I also search for books about kangaroos. Now I find lots of books that I, and probably you, were not aware of. Books & Collectibles offers me copies of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Dumper the Kangaroo, The Life of a Kangaroo, Kangaroo Confidential, Chai the Kangaroo, The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, 'Roo Shooters Guide, My Kangaroo Fanny, The Kangaroo Betrayed, etc. Can any other site give you a selection of kangaroo titles like this? I don't know. I've never looked.
Well, we have already exceeded our allotted space without getting past the "B" book listing sites. There are other interesting book sites that begin with the letter "B," but we will have to save them for another day.
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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
RareBookBuyer.com Specialized in Purchasing
Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
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.
