We enter 2019 with 8,765,292 full text records in the Rare Book Transaction History Database. During the past year we’ve added 465,101 new records or 1,274 a day or 53 records every hour of every day of the year. These auction records, while not entirely seamless are so complete that few items, no matter how rare, lack a substantially complete record.
For 2019 we will continue to add fresh records as auctions complete, add two projects now beginning and a third to later in the first half.
We have on hand the archives of a California university that we think will add somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 older records. We will also open a new database to test the concept of intense local history databases that rely primarily on ephemera, manuscripts, photography, and maps rather than books. I’ll be installing my 8,000 item collection of southern Ulster County this year.
We also hope to confirm a relationship with the State of New York to make the southern Ulster County Collection a model for the other 61 counties of New York State.
The third project will reflect a rethinking about how the field intersects with the present.
So we’ll be busy and we hope, if that’s your preference, that you are too.
To the roughly 20,000 members of the Rare Book Hub community who provide daily inspiration I speak for all of us when I say thank you.
Sotheby’s Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana 27 January 2026
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: An extraordinary pair of books from George Washington’s field library, marking the conjunction of Robert Rogers, George Washington, and Henry Knox. $1,200,000 to $1,800,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: An extraordinary letter marking the conjunction of George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Benjamin Franklin. $1,000,000 to $1,500,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: Virginia House of Delegates. The genesis of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. $350,000 to $500,000.
Sotheby’s Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana 27 January 2026
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: (Gettysburg). “Genl. Doubleday has taken charge of the battle”: Autograph witness to the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, illustrated by fourteen maps and plans. $200,000 to $300,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: President Lincoln thanks a schoolboy on behalf of "all the children of the nation for his efforts to ensure "that this war shall be successful, and the Union be maintained and perpetuated." $200,000 to $300,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27:</b> [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/9d2762bc-9f26-47ef-96de-1c28070e19f6.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27:</b> [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.")