Rose City Book & Paper Fair Is Going Virtual This Year
- by Michael Stillman
The Cascade Booksellers Association will be holding their annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair again in June, but this year's edition will be unlike any before. The western states booksellers organization normally holds its fair in the Rose City, Portland, Oregon, but this one will be harder to pin down in terms of location. It is nowhere and everywhere. This one will be a virtual fair.
The Rose City Fair was originally scheduled to again take place in Portland, but the booksellers had to cancel that plan for the same reason so many other events have been cancelled. However, rather than just cancelling the fair, the Cascade Booksellers decided to create a virtual, online fair. They have retained the originally scheduled dates, June 12-14.
To attend this fair, you will need to go to the Cascade Booksellers web page at cascadebooksellers.com. It will open at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, June 12, and remain open until 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 14. While there, you will be able to visit each exhibitor's “virtual booth.” The booksellers association explains that, “they will be offering a wide variety of the best in used, rare and collectible books, paper ephemera, prints, postcards, maps and more using a variety of social media, websites and electronic catalogs.” They continue, “There are already lots of ways to buy books online. The Rose City Virtual Book Fair is an experience, not a website. It will be a fun and dynamic event, offering an opportunity to visit and explore. Browse, chat, connect, buy, collect.”
This year's fair will be free to the public. However, you can purchase an admission to the Preview to be held on June 11. The cost is $10 and will give you first crack at purchasing the items offered. To purchase a Preview admission, go to the Cascade booksellers website at cascadebooksellers.com.
While you may not get to shake hands with a bookseller this year, there are some definite advantages to this format:
1. No travel is necessary. No lost time or expenses for gas, eating in restaurants, perhaps renting a hotel room.
2. Admission is free, the usual entrance fee having been waived.
3. Longer hours... much longer hours. The fair will be open continuously from the Friday morning start to the Sunday evening close. You can attend in the middle of the night if you like.
4. Visiting is not effectively limited to people living in the Pacific Northwest. It can be attended just as easily from any place in the world, opening the doors to all sorts of people who could never attend before.
Many of the booksellers from previous years will be back in this new format along with some new ones as well.
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
