Rare Book Monthly

Articles - January - 2021 Issue

Part I - The Year that Was, the year that Will Be

Bruce McKinney

2020 for many has been harrowing.  I requested representatives of some of the principal organizations in the rare paper field for their perspectives on what 2020 has meant and what their experience suggests the field will be in the immediate future.  Almost all individuals and organizations that were contacted graciously prepared statements.

 

The Year that Was is in 3 parts in Rare Book Monthly:

Part 1 – This story

Part 2 – Perspectives from the Auctions

Part 3 – Perspectives from Dealer Organizations + Marvin Getman’s Electronic Book Fairs

 

Catherine Williamson of Bonhams,

Christina Geiger of Christies,   

Stephan Ludwig of Forum Auctions,

Selby Kiffer on behalf of Sotheby’s

Nicho Lowry on behalf of Swann Galleries

 

Roger Treglown & Pom Harrington of the ABA,

Susan Benne of the ABAA,

Sally Burdon of ILAB,

and

Marvin Getman of Virtual Book and Paper Fairs have offered their statements about what we went through and what we can expect in 2021.  Taken together they are promising and cautious. 

 

Let’s set the dreamscape

 

The rare book fairs in New York in early March were inadvertently at the hinge where reality and nightmare fantasy went their separate ways.  It was known in February in the scientific community that the illness known to history as Covid-19 was getting out-of-control in China and that random cases were appearing in the United States, Asia and Europe.  Almost immediately the impending epidemic was expressed in political rather than medical terms, causing delays to protect the population and the economy.  New York City soon engulfed, was closed to in-person business and many of America’s auction houses and dealers around the world closed their offices, organizing work from home protocols, operating via online conferences.

 

Book fairs as in-person events came to a dead stop but both the ABAA and Marvin Getman’s Virtual Book Fair took the challenge to offer online book fairs as a renewed experiment that continues to create ever larger footprints.

 

Auction houses in New York and elsewhere responded worldwide by creating online auctions in place of in-person events and as the Covid 19 numbers began to surge, the book, manuscript, map and ephemera buying community slowly joined the bidding.  By year-end, our provisional totals suggest, by every measure, auctions successfully adjusted:

 

                        2019                            2020

Auctions          1669                            1871

Lots                 517,145                       528,239

Lots Sold         395,690                       430,969

% Sold             77%                             81.58%           

 

In previous financial disasters and during World Wars auctions shrank to insignificance.  The difference of course has been the Internet. 

 

Into the fall, as the bidding was strengthening, consignors were finding the time between consignment to sale, had been significantly reduced, providing new flexibility.  Covid has been a human disaster but the rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera component of collectibles has found it possible to rethink and remake a field that has long been rigid in its conformity.

 

As substantial as the growing acceptance for online auctions has been, the changes in book fairs have been a revelation – creating the atmosphere of a fair electronically, with unheard of search efficiency, knowing who has what, to see, inspect, ask and get answered and agree to buy.  Most observers wax wistful for the idea traditional book fairs will be back but as many now believe the electronic book fair is going to always be part of the future even as traditional person to person fairs gloriously rebound.   For dealers, fairs be they online or in-person, are vital.

 

For those dealers whose business has comprised a significant institutional component, they have been in some cases disproportionately damaged as Covid-19 restrictions have altered enrollments and reduced budgets.  They are still expected to be committed buyers but their budgets have been restrained and delayed.  They will be back.

 

Overhanging the expected recovery, Covid-19 remains a question mark.  Wishful thinking that the pandemic would burn itself out has been frequently pronounced and consistently proven to be wrong.  In-hospital treatment has dramatically improved but at the same time the number of cases continue to surge.  Almost mystically, let’s just call it what it is, a miracle, out of the fog of 4 year projections given us last summer, the first vaccines are now being released and projections suggest science will slay Covid-19 later in the year.

 

The health crisis will pass but many citizens will find their finances in tatters.  Inflation after an absence of almost 30 years will in a few years begin to leave a permanent hangover.  Significant tax increases are inevitable.  And we’ll adjust.  Life is an experience and rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera are a wonderful part of it.

 

This completes my overview and I‘m connecting you to Part 2, the perspectives of 5 seasoned auction professionals, and then part 3, the views of ILAB, ABAA and ABA as well as Marvin Getman, the book fair impresario.

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Fine Books and Manuscripts
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane] — Isaac D'Israeli. Jane Austen's copy of Curiosities of Literature. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition in boards of the author's debut novel. 70,000 - 100,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Brontë, Charlotte. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me..." 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Eliot, George. The author's magnum opus. 25,000 - 35,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Whitman, Walt. Manuscript written upon the Death of Lincoln, 1865. 60,000 - 80,000 USD
  • Sotheby’s
    Important Modern Literature from the Library of an American Filmmaker
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Kerouac, Jack. Typescript scroll of The Dharma Bums. Typed by Kerouac in Orlando, Florida, 1957, published by Viking in 1958. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. The autograph manuscript of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Miller, Henry. Typescript of The Last Book, a working title for Tropic of Cancer, written circa 1931–1932. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with a lengthy inscription to Joe Goode. 40,000 - 60,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. in our time, first edition of Hemingway’s second book. 30,000 - 50,000 USD
  • Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Samuel Augustus Mitchell, A New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining, Philadelphia, 1846. $3,500 to $5,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: 17th–19th-century case maps of various locations. $1,500 to $2,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Andreas Cellarius, Haemisphaerium Stellatum Boreale Cum Subiecto Haemisphaerio Terrestri, celestial chart, Amsterdam, 1708. $2,500 to $3,500.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Vincenzo Coronelli, Set of engraved gores for Coronelli’s monumental 42-inch terrestrial globe, Venice, circa 1688–97. $18,000 to $22,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, group of four navigational charts, Antwerp, 1580s. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Thomas Bros, Block Book of Berkeley, Oakland, 1920s. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Nieuhoff & John Ogilby, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, map of China, plan of Canton, London, 1673. $1,200 to $1,800.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Frederick Sander, Reichenbachia, St. Albans, 1888-1894. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Two early illustrated works on horsemanship and breeding, Nuremberg, early 18th century. $700 to $800.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Gould, A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans. Supplement to the First Edition, London, 1834; 1855. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World, London, 1808–14. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Oakley Hoopes Bailey, Hackensack, New Jersey, Boston, 1896. $800 to $1,200.
  • CHRISTIE’S
    Valuable Books and Manuscripts
    London auction
    13 December
    Find out more
    Christie’s, Explore now
    TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
    C.1311. £100,000–150,000
  • Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800

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