Some Attractive (but Sometimes Overlooked) Benefits to Being a Rare Book Hub “FREE” Member
- by Susan Halas
A first edition of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz with scarce inscription by W.W. Denslow. It sold for $49,875 at a Doyle’s sale on April 11th.
If you are a Rare Book Hub Monthly (RBH) reader you probably know that our site has two sides. One side is by subscription and it gives members access to our over 15 million auction records, and the other side contains features like this article in the RBH Monthly that are free.
But did you know that there are other free features that are well worth using and that you may have overlooked just because they are a little tricky to find?
The most significant “free” feature is the “free” membership. Features of the “free” membership include:
Rare Book Monthly
Search Upcoming Auctions
Matchmaker automated searching of auctions
Records Tracking
Auction Calendar
Emailed Weekly Auction Updates (optional)
To sign up for these additional “free” features go to the RareBookHub.com home page and click on the link in the upper right hand corner “Become a Member.” That will take you to the various categories of membership. The “free” category is the one at the far left. Scroll down a little and click on the little brown box that says “Register,” and voila, within a short time you’ll receive an acknowledgement and instructions for setting up your account.
Once you have that account, log in and once again at the top right hand corner look for the link “My Account”and click on it. That will bring up a page with a variety of information. Look for the box headed “My Mailings” and click on both options “Auction Updates” and “Monthly Mailings.”
The auction updates mean you will receive a weekly mailing of the most recently completed auctions each week which is extremely detailed and contains information not only about books, but a great many other categories including quite a few you might not expect like photography, baseball cards, comic books, and other areas that are not usually thought of as rare book related.
Again, once you have registered as a “free” member in addition to getting the weekly mailing (which usually comes out on a Sunday) you can also find this information by logging in, and clicking on the home page top banner on the category that says “Upcoming Auctions.”Click on that pull down menu and locate “Recently Reported Auction Updates” with the subhead Weekly Reports. Here you can see all the weekly reports gathered in one easily accessible location.
Pick any of the reports that you might like to browse and click on the brown button “Read More” - that will take you to an extremely detailed account of all the activity for that particular week.
Scroll down a bit and you’ll find perhaps the most interesting feature consisting of a box headed Top 25 Lots Reported This Past Week.
Even if you are primarily interested in books, it would be hard not to notice that this box is frequently dominated by non-book items like the previously mentioned sports cards, comic books, or prints and multiples, often at very eye-popping prices. It definitely helps to get a sense of where the money and the market is headed to compare these Top 25 prices with the prices that books you may find desirable are bringing.
Did you know in browsing through March and April 2025 alone there were results that included:
A 1970s Apple Company check signed by Steve Jobs in the amount of $7.05 that sold for over $60,000
A 2024 baseball card for LA Dodger star Shohei Ohtani 2024 with a hammer price of $1,062,500 and it was in a sports memorabilia auction where there were at least dozen cards that brought $100,000 or more.
A 1941 3-sheet movie poster for the Wolf Man that brought $190,500
1941 Ansel Adams' photo MOONRISE Hernandez, New Mexico realized $635,000
Checking out the Top 25 box can be interesting, informative and will definitely show that there’s more included in RBH auction results than books.
But back to books.
Go back to any of the individual completed auction listings. Pick an auction, click on the link. It will bring up all the lots sold in that auction. The way it will display is in numerical order by lot number. But, just in case you’re curious and want to see the results listed in order of monetary value, the brown box near the top titled “Auction Report”and you’ll see that for example at the Doyle’s sale on April 11 a first edition of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz with scarce inscription by W.W. Denslow sold for $49,875.00, which was many times higher than the pre-auction estimate of $8,000-$12,000. Best of all, click on the link and you’ll see the detailed auction catalog notes and a clean clear photo.
(Reminder to the reader: You need to be signed into your account for this link to work).
So if FREEis your thing, you’ll find a lot to like in the “Free Membership” section of RBH.
There are more to our free membership features than present space allows. Check some of our other stories by publisher Bruce McKiney to find out how to locate books of your own particular interest in upcoming events using the “Search Upcoming Auctions” feature.
Sotheby’s Shelf Life: Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper from the Library of Stanley J. Seeger and Christopher Cone 25 June – July 7
Sotheby’s, July 7: Ludwig van Beethoven. Autograph sketches for the overture "Die Weihe des Hauses", op.124, [1822], UNPUBLISHED. £150,000 to £200,000.
Sotheby’s, July 7: Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice, 1813, first edition, 3 volumes, contemporary half calf. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, July 7: Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass, Brooklyn, 1855, first edition, first issue, original green cloth, the Doheny copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, July 7: Binding—Sangorski & Sutcliffe—Omar Khayyam. Rubaiyat, London, 1872, third edition, in a magnificent jewelled Peacock binding. £15,000 to £20,000.
Sotheby’s, July 7: George Eliot. Middlemarch, Edinburgh and London, 1871, first edition in the original parts. £20,000 to £30,000.
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: Hassall (Joan) A large collection of over 300 original woodblocks of engravings for various books, v.d., with Hassall's engraver's glass water-globe (Qty) - Est. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 9: Eragny Press.- [Bradley (Katherine Harris) & Edith Emma Cooper], "Michael Field." Whym Chow, Flame of Love, one of only 27 copies, inscribed by Bradley, the rarest book from the press, 1914. - Est. £3,000-4,000
Forum, July 9: [Moore (Thomas Sturge)] [Wood Engravings], 71 wood-engravings printed by David Chambers from the original blocks, the only set on Japanese Hosho paper, from an edition of 5 sets, [1970]. - Est. £3,000-4,000
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: La Fontaine (Jean de) Contes et Nouvelles en vers, 2 vol., engraved plates after Eisen, fine early 19th century blue morocco, gilt, by Bradel l'ainé, Amsterdam [Paris], 1762. - Est. £2,000-3,000
Forum, July 9: Erotica.- Prostitution.- Pretty Women of Paris (The); Their Names and Addresses, Qualities and Faults..., [Paris], privately printed at the Press of the Prefecture de Police, 1883. - Est. £3,000-4,000
Forum, July 9: Vale Press.- Ricketts (Charles) & Lucien Pissarro. De la Typographie et de l'Harmonie de la Page Imprimée…, [one of 216 copies], bound in dark blue morocco tooled in gilt, by Sarah T.Prideaux, 1898. - Est. £1,000-1,500
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: Martin (John) Illustrations of the Bible, complete set of 20 mezzotints, good impressions, rarely found in early states, [c.1831-1835]. - Est. £1,000-1,500
Forum, July 9: Golden Cockerel Press.- Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ (The), one of 500 copies, Mary Gill's copy, Waltham St. Lawrence, 1931 with a signed proof of engraving on japon numbered 10/10 (2) - Est. £5,000-7,000
Forum, July 9: Boccaccio (Giovanni) The Decameron, 3 vol., vol.1 extra-illustrated by John Buckland Wright with c.150 erotic original drawings in pen & ink and pencil, 1886 [extra-illustrated c.1940]. - Est. £10,000-15,000
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: Cox (Morris) Collection of Gogmagog Press Books, 35 vol., rare complete collection of printed books issued by the press, limited editions, most signed by Cox, 1957-83. - Est. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 9: Wynkyn de Worde.- [Terentius Afer (Publius)] [Comedie...], [Paris, Josse Badius: sold in London by Wynkyn de Worde, & others], [15 July 1504]. - Est. £4,000-6,000
Forum, July 9: Mosley (James) Ornamented Types. Twenty-Three Alphabets from the Foundry of Louis John Pouchée, 2 vol., one of 10 copies for presentation, from an edition of 210, 1992-93. - Est. £1,000-2,000
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
