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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. -
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
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Bonhams, June 16-24: KELMSCOTT PRESS. RUSKIN. The Nature of Gothic. 1892. $1,500 - $2,500Bonhams, June 16-24: ASHENDENE PRESS. The Wisdom of Jesus. 1932. $2,000 - $3,000Bonhams, June 16-24: CHARLOTTE BRONTE WRITES AS GOVERNESS. Autograph Letter Signed, 1851. $15,000 - $25,000Bonhams, June 16-24: FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS. BRONTE, Emily. New York, 1848. $3,000 - $5,000Bonhams, June 16-24: IAN FLEMING ASSOCIATION COPY. You Only Live Twice. London, 1964. $7,000 - $9,000Bonhams, June 16-24: DELUXE EDITION WITH ORIGINAL PAINTING. BUKOWSKI, Charles. War All the Time. 1984. $3,000 - $5,000Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN'S MOST POWERFUL STATEMENT ON THE ATOMIC BOMB. Original Typed Manuscript Signed, "On My Participation in the Atom Bomb Project," 1953. $100,000 - $150,000Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN ON SCIENCE, WAR AND MORALITY. Autograph Letter Signed, 1949. $20,000 - $30,000Bonhams, June 16-24: SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. WASHINGTON, George. Engraved document signed, 1786. $8,000 - $12,000Bonhams, June 16-24: AN EARLY CHINESE-MADE 34-STAR U.S. CONSULAR FLAG. $8,000 - $12,000Bonhams, June 16-24: SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF LINCOLN WITH HIS SON TAD. 1864. $60,000 - $90,000Bonhams, June 16-24: MALCOLM X WRITES FROM KENYA. Postcard signed, 1964. $4,000 - $6,000
Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2008 Issue
The Bookseller's Dilemma: Dealing with the Listing Bottleneck
By Renée Magriel Roberts
When the bookselling industry moved into virtual marketing and sales over the internet from a brick-and-mortar environment, a huge (and in some cases insurmountable) problem arose with the change. In a bricks-and-mortar environment books are shelved and are located by sight; in the virtual environment books must be correctly and accurately listed in a database and then uploaded to websites in order to be "seen" and to sell. Books unlisted in the shop of a virtual bookseller make no money.
For many and we include ourselves, this has caused a bottleneck that is still unresolved. Sure, books with ISBNs can be scanned in with a correctly installed barcode scanner and software; this will bring up the basic information in most cases. But the book still has to be graded and described; often the default categories are too broad and unspecific. And in general these easier-to-list books represent the least expensive of the titles.
Rare books and books that pre-date the ISBN present far more difficulties from a listing perspective, and here is where the bottleneck comes in. It is difficult to find another person who will grade, describe, and price a book the way you might wish. First of all you have to be dealing with someone who is honest and can be trusted around valuable material. Care must be taken in handling the books. And entering the information into a database (we use HomeBase) in not a walk in the woods either.
To train someone to do this accurately, I suggest that you start with the lower-value titles. When using HomeBase, you can enter a 10-digit ISBN number without dashes in the ISBN lookup field. If listings are available on ABE, these will be shown as highest value and lowest value for the book, but these are still too inaccurate to be used exclusively in creating a listing, because the value will depend upon the condition of both the book and the dustjacket, if applicable, the edition of the book, and whether it has any additional valuable attributes, such as being signed by the author, or owned by someone well-known, or by someone who might have a relationship to the book or the author. The lookup feature of HomeBase is squirrelly; it won't find anything if too much information is put in, or might not find a real comparable. So, in general, we don't use the lookup feature very much. It should be mentioned that when searching for comparables, the identity and trustworthiness of the shop creating the comparable is just as important as the value of the book itself. There are some wild listings out there.
In the author field, we use last name, first name in upper and lower case. Listings might also include variant spellings for the author name (Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Allen Poe) for example, because if somebody types in the wrong spelling they are not going to get your listing unless the variant is there. I've seen some booksellers use all caps for author name; I personally do not think that is necessary, and it still sounds like "screaming" to me. Even if the author that makes the book valuable (for example a Poe poem in a large periodical) is not the editor, it is a good idea to list the valuable author name in the author field. Also note that the author field is required by some websites, so if you leave it blank your listing may not be uploaded. When I do not have an author name I either list the publisher's name in that field, or "editor", or some other place-holder. Once an author has been entered into HomeBase it becomes part of a look-up list that automatically fills in the field. Watch out for this, because this automatic feature can sometimes create an incorrect listing.