Rare Book Monthly

Articles - July - 2005 Issue

Collecting has its Moments

An absurdly rare New Paltz item

An absurdly rare New Paltz item


By Bruce McKinney

For the past three years we have been building AE. The experience has been tough and fascinating. We thought we were simply going to capture information about books and put it in a database. In fact, we ended up developing a process that encompasses both finding the books in the marketplace, and running them through a filter of data that enables the buyer to make intelligent decisions. The AED (Americana Exchange Database), our original project, provides the data needed to make those decisions. It contains almost 1.2 million records, most including prices. The later project, MatchMaker, enables the buyer to find even obscure books and ephemera from the mass of offerings now available. Here are a few of my own recent purchases on eBay and ABE that further confirm the value of the AED as a database and MatchMaker, our suite of collector premium services, as a process.

On eBay two unique Ulster County [New York] items were offered by a merchant who usually sells lingerie and swimwear. In this case it was the descriptions that were scanty. These pieces are among the rarest Hudson Valley printed materials in existence but were offered with barely a line of description. One is the "History of the Huguenot Church and Settlement at New Paltz" by Rev. Charles H. Stitt, a 29-page pamphlet printed in Kingston, New York in 1863. The other is "Collections of The Ulster Historical Society, Volume I - Part 2" with a Kingston indicia and dated 1860.

The Stitt history is rare to the point of invisibility. The Lefevre History of New Paltz, first issued in 1903 and revised and enlarged in a second edition in 1909, mentions Rev. Stitt's tenure as Dominie of the Dutch Reformed Church but makes no mention of this history in its index. Neither of the historical societies in New Paltz and Kingston have copies or even awareness of it. Neither was it in the AED nor mentioned in the indexes of local and county histories. The item basically didn't exist until MatchMaker found it.

Both items came up as ten day auctions, closing 15 minutes apart, and I saw them both on day one. Until the final day nothing much happened. An occasional eBay bidder placed initial low bids, meeting the seller's minimum bids to open [$8.00], essentially agreeing to buy each item if no one else stepped in. With a few hours to go on day 10 I tested my ability to bid. I placed a small bid on the Stitt's over the then current bid, and soon saw the other bidder go to $20. With a minute to go, I placed a bid for $175 and bought the item for $32.99.

Fifteen minutes later the second item, Part 2 of Volume I of the Collections of the Ulster Historical Society was completing its 10 day run. This volume was described as 177 pages and in fact was not. The pagination begins on 77 and runs to 177 but the seller apparently only looked at the last page number. I suppose this gives me the right to return or to complain but I'm nevertheless satisfied. I knew the print run of the vol. II to be 50 but found no mention in the AED and specifically in Munselliana [Munsell was the printer] for the print run of the first volume. A few minutes later this second piece was sold to me for $42.99 against a bid I placed in the final minute for $200.

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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
  • Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: (Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie). Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece, 2 vols, 1st edition, 1782-1822. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Gentlemen's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, by Sylvanus Urban, 11 volumes. £700-1,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Shackleton (Ernest). The Heart of the Antarctic, 2 vols, 1st ed, presentation copy, 1909. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Drayton (Michael). Poly Olbion..., London: 1622. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Scheuchzer (Johann Jacob). Ouresiphoites Helveticus, 4 parts in 1, 2nd ed, 1723. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Roberts (Henry, after). Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ..., [1784]. £500-800
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Maffei (Giovanni), Indiarum orientalium Occidentaliumque Descriptio..., 1589. £1,200-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Ortelius (Abraham), Typus Orbis Terrarum, [1598]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Bible [English]. [The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New..., 1613]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Pierpont Morgan Collection. Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, 1904 & 1906. £2,000-3,000
  • Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000

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