Rare Book Monthly
Articles - October - 2006 Issue
Lightning Strikes Twice at John's Western Gallery
Purchased by the French collector Moi-meme.
Maps and charts are of course among the choice raw material of history and seven lots offered brought out buyer lust. A map of Santa Monica dated 1875 brought $5,750 against an estimate of $800 to $1,200 and a 5 page "Description of Orange and Vine Lands in Los Angeles" with map brought $1,840 against an estimate of $300 to $400. Overall maps and charts brought almost 3 times the low estimates and twice the highs. Early Los Angeles city directories, lots 143-145, brought $6,325, $7,475 and $6,900, a total of $20,800, again more than twice the high estimates. An albumen-print carte de visite of "Tiburcio Vasquez, the notorious Bandit," brought $2,875, a sum probably greater than all the money he obtained at gun-point and evidence that he might have done better shooting photographs. For those who needed confirmation of his capture lot 111 was a "Diagram of the Scene of the Capture of Vasquez" which brought $3,450 against an estimate of $1,500 to $2,500. If you are now curious about Mr. Vasquez here is a link to the archives at USC which have a piece on him. www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/Vasquez.html
Several Chinese items brought good prices. An 1878 speech on Chinese exclusion delivered by the Hon. Jas. J. Ayers to the committee of the [state] Constitutional Convention brought $1,495 against an estimate of $800 to $1,200. A letter signed by H. D. Barrows expressing anti-Chinese sentiments and dated 1878, brought $546 against an estimate of $250 to $350.
Bargain hunters found the spotty bidding appealing and bought unloved material for well under the low estimate. One buyer paid $74.75 for 6 such lots, a remarkable if unexpected bounty. These lots included early billheads, a newspaper receipt, "Minutes of the First Session of the Southern California Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,...", and "Reminicences de l'Hymne de la France a l'Ennemi!" which is thought to be possibly the first Los Angeles imprint in French.
You never know what you'll find at an auction. That's why you go.
Full results are posted in the auction pages [click here].
Rare Book Monthly
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Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
26th March 2026Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
26th March 2026Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000