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Ketterer Rare Books
Auction May 26thKetterer Rare Books, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000Ketterer Rare Books
Auction May 26thKetterer Rare Books, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000Ketterer Rare Books
Auction May 26thKetterer Rare Books, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000Ketterer Rare Books
Auction May 26thKetterer Rare Books, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000Ketterer Rare Books, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000 -
Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
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Sotheby's
Sell Your Fine Books & ManuscriptsSotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USDSotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USDSotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USDSotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USDSotheby's
Sell Your Fine Books & ManuscriptsSotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USDSotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBPSotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBPSotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR -
Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
Rare Book Monthly
Articles - November - 2009 Issue
The Book Club of California: the oars are in the water
By Bruce McKinney
The Book Club of California held its annual reorganization meeting on Wednesday, October 20th in new space under renovation quarters at 312 Sutter Street in San Francisco. I went expecting a small board and a few cranks and found a board of 15 and an involved audience of 25 on a Wednesday afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00 pm when young people are usually working and old people taking naps. This is a group committed to printing, history and books. The Club works to keep membership at 1,000 and as reported at the meeting, at 991 is almost as good as Ivory Snow [99.44%]. The meeting was actually two separate events. The first was the final meeting under the outgoing board of directors and the second the first meeting of the new board. The order and precision were impressive.
A review of the association's budget was provided and attention drawn to the year-over-year decline in the club's very substantial investments. Given the disaster that has befallen so many the club seems to be managing itself well.
Attention was also drawn to a significant source of club income, the books it publishes. It has issued many important volumes over the years. Its imprint is prestigious and no doubt one source, among many, of membership. By all accounts the printing is important for several reasons not least of which is that the club has evolved over the past fifty years into an informal trade association for the various and sundry professions associated with the design, typography, printing and binding of books. The club that once was more collector focused today includes many from the trades that make what collectors buy.
A review of club specifics, outlined in a ten-page handout along with a layout of club facilities now under construction, conveyed not just details about the work but also a clear message of an organization under firm management. Most book clubs in America and Canada are informal affairs. This book club is west coast formal. By membership, as opposed to income or assets, I believe it's the largest such club for bibliophiles in America. It is also a very democratic organization as became evident when a discussion, raised from the floor by Norman Clayton of the Classic Letterpress, became a lengthy statement and exchange on 21st century financial reality, emblematic of changes overtaking the world of books today. Mr. Clayton, a letterpress printer from Oakland has, this past year, held a $20,000 contract from the club to print its quarterly newsletter. He had recently been notified his contract would not be renewed as the club had identified both substantial savings and increasing flexibility in moving to offset. He read a long and determined letter, essentially a plea for continuity with the club's almost one hundred year tradition of printing its work letterpress. He was given extended time to present his view and a motion to review was adopted by the new board.