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Sotheby’s
New York Book Week
12-26 JuneSotheby’s, June 25: Theocritus. Theocriti Eclogae triginta, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, February 1495/1496. 220,000 - 280,000 USDSotheby’s, June 26: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby, 1925. 40,000 - 60,000 USDSotheby’s, June 26: Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Printed ca. 1381-1832. 400,000 - 600,000 USDSotheby’s, June 26: Lincoln, Abraham. Thirteenth Amendment, signed by Abraham Lincoln. 8,000,000 - 12,000,000 USDSotheby’s, June 26: Galieli, Galileo. First Edition of the Foundation of Modern Astronomy, 1610. 300,000 - 400,000 USD -
Finarte
Books, Autographs & Prints
June 24 & 25, 2025Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE / LANDINO, CRISTOFORO. Comento di Christophoro Landino Fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Danthe Alighieri poeta fiorentino, 1481. €40,000 to €50,000.Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE. La Commedia [Commento di Christophorus Landinus]. Aggiunta: Marsilius Ficinus, Ad Dantem gratulatio [in latino e Italiano], 1487. €40,000 to €60,000.Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE. Il Convivio, 1490. €20,000 to €25,000.Finarte
Books, Autographs & Prints
June 24 & 25, 2025Finarte, June 24-25: BANDELLO, MATTEO. La prima [-quarta] parte de le nouelle del Bandello, 1554. €7,000 to €9,000.Finarte, June 24-25: LEGATURA – PLUTARCO. Le vies des hommes illustres, grecs et romaines translates, 1567. €10,000 to €12,000.Finarte, June 24-25: TOLOMEO, CLAUDIO. Ptolemeo La Geografia di Claudio Ptolemeo Alessandrino, Con alcuni comenti…, 1548. €4,000 to €6,000.Finarte
Books, Autographs & Prints
June 24 & 25, 2025Finarte, June 24-25: FESTE - COPPOLA, GIOVANNI CARLO. Le nozze degli Dei, favola [...] rappresentata in musica in Firenze…, 1637. €6,000 to €8,000.Finarte, June 24-25: SPINOZA, BARUCH. Opera posthuma, 1677. €8,000 to €12,000.Finarte, June 24-25: PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER. Borus Godunov, 1831. €30,000 to €50,000.Finarte
Books, Autographs & Prints
June 24 & 25, 2025Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - LECUIRE, PIERRE. Ballets-minute, 1954. €35,000 to €40,000.Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - MAJAKOVSKIJ, VLADIMIR / LISSITZKY, LAZAR MARKOVICH. Dlia Golosa, 1923. €7,000 to €10,000.Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - MATISSE, HENRI / MONTHERLANT, HENRY DE. Pasiphaé. Chant de Minos., 1944. €22,000 to €24,000. -
Swann, June 17: Lot 13: Arthur Rackham, Candlelight, pen and ink, circa 1900.Swann, June 17: Lot 28: Harold Von Schmidt, "I Asked Jim If He Wanted To Accompany Us To Teach The Hanneseys A Lesson.", oil on canvas, 1957.Swann, June 17: Lot 96: Arthur Szyk, Thumbelina, gouache and pencil, 1945.Swann, June 17: Lot 101: D.R. Sexton, The White Rabbit And Bill The Lizard, watercolor and gouache, 1932.Swann, June 17: Lot 127: Miguel Covarrubias, Bradypus Tridactilus. Three-Toed Sloth, gouache, circa 1953.Swann, June 17: Lot 132: William Pène Du Bois, 2 Illustrations: Balloon Merry Go Round On The Ground And In The Air, pen and ink and wash, 1947.Swann, June 17: Lot 137: Lee Lorenz, Confetti Hourglass, mixed media, 1973.Swann, June 17: Lot 181: Norman Rockwell, Portrait Of Floyd Jerome Patten (Editor At Boy's Life Magazine), charcoal, circa 1915.Swann, June 17: Lot 188: Ludwig Bemelmans, Rue De Buci, Paris, casein, watercolor, ink and gouache, 1955.Swann, June 17: Lot 263: Maurice Sendak, Sundance Childrens Theater Poster Preliminary Sketch, pencil, 1988.
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Bonhams, June 16-25: 15th-CENTURY TREATISE ON SYPHILIS. GRÜNPECK. 1496. $20,000 - $30,000Bonhams, June 16-25: THE NORMAN COPY OF BENIVIENI'S TREATISE ON PATHOLOGY. 1507. $12,000 - $18,000Bonhams, June 16-25: FRACASTORO. Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus. 1530. $8,000 - $12,000Bonhams, June 16-25: THE FIRST PUBLISHED WORK ON SKIN DISEASES. MERCURIALIS. De morbis cutaneis... 1572. $10,000 - $15,000Bonhams, June 16-25: BIDLOO. Anatomia humani corporis... 1685. $6,000 - $9,000Bonhams, June 16-25: THE NORMAN COPY OF DOUGLASS'S EARLY AMERICAN WORK ON INNOCULATION AND SMALLPOX. 1722. $20,000 - $30,000Bonhams, June 16-25: LIND'S FIRST TREATISE ON SCURVY. 1753. $15,000 - $20,000Bonhams, June 16-25: RARE JENNER SIGNED CIRCULAR ON VACCINATION. 1821. $4,000 - $6,000Bonhams, June 16-25: MOST BEAUTIFUL OF MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. BRIGHT. Reports of Medical Cases... 1827-1831. $10,000 - $15,000Bonhams, June 16-25: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE PRESENTATION COPY TO HER MOTHER. 1860. $6,000 - $8,000Bonhams, June 16-25: LORENZO TRAVER'S MANUSCRIPT JOURNAL OF BURNSIDE'S NORTH CAROLINA EXPEDITION. TRAVER, Lorenzo. $2,000 - $3,000Bonhams, June 16-25: ONE OF THE EARLIEST PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKS ON DERMATOLOGY. HARDY. Clinique Photographique... 1868. $3,000 - $5,000
Rare Book Monthly
The Swami Speaks
By Bruce McKinney
Change is the order of the day not only in politics but also in book selling; the reactions and responses just as emotional and visceral. For those who became booksellers to avoid the froth there is plenty of heckling to make you wonder if you chose the right profession. The pastoral expectations of a life among books, for some time, have been giving way to an emerging market along the lines of the Chicago stock yards.
For fully ten years the world of books has been shifting online. With this transfer has come awareness of the vastly larger quantities of many books and editions that "are out there." This in turn has brought a recalibration of rarity that increasingly looks not only at availability but interest.
It has created an emerging worldwide and increasingly visible inventory that is easy to see and everyday understood by more people. It has forced dealers to decide whether to price material according to what a specific individual will pay or to what the market says it is worth. Just a few years ago it was unlikely collectors were seeing the larger picture. Today many more are, the evidence of this is in the volume of material moving through eBay and traditional auctions. Buyers of all persuasions increasingly trust competitive bidding more than asking prices and so are bidding rather than outright buying.
The disconnect between the old market of prix fix and the new market of demand established prices has been possible only because collectors have been slow to grasp the emerging transparency of the market. This has left the dealer to decide how much to disclose, a difficult decision with no right answer. Sellers of course have the right to obtain the best price and so do buyers. If one side is asleep the other will prevail but these days few collectors are entirely unaware of their options. For years the dealer knew much more but the gap is quickly closing and it's increasingly common for collector knowledge to decisively trump dealer awareness.
For collectors with some awareness of the extensive market information now available this has meant acquiring access to the tools that empower bidders. Of course to acquire or access them you need to know what they are and while some dealers have embraced such tools as part of the emerging future of bookselling and collecting and share this information with their clients, others have responded in anger, disbelief and frustration. Ultimately, it is the collector who must be satisfied and they are embracing such tools.
With eBay and auction houses playing increasing roles in the exchange of books, manuscripts and ephemera the logical next step is for dealers to edge into the auction market themselves. Traditionally, this would have been verboten. Booksellers sold at retail prices they set, and a bidding process would have undermined the logic of their pricing. However, the overwhelming number of listings and increasing buyer preference for market derived prices is making this necessary. Better to adapt to a new pricing strategy than be left behind.
This is not to say we expect dealers to stop selling by traditional means. They will not and should not. What we expect to see is their offering some items through a bid and ask process. The first such offerings are likely to be their slowest-moving inventory. That said, we expect to see one or more of the bookseller organizations lead the way to organizing a booksellers' auction site. With the high commissions of other auctions, both online and traditional, plus the tendency for books to get lost among the hundreds of items they sell, a bookseller run online auction just for books appears the logical next step. If such a step is logical, then it probably will happen.