In 2002, auction catalogues I acquired in the 1990s became one basis of the online project I started then and continue today, the Americana Exchange. AE began with a focus on historic auctions and bibliographic history and evolved, by degrees, into the relentless convergence of the traditionally fragmented book, manuscript and ephemera market into an ever more unified one-world online. Today the knitting together of collectors, dealers, libraries and book collecting clubs with research, auctions, listing sites and AE Monthly which is now the largest media devoted to books, manuscripts and ephemera field, is a continuing reality whose footprint deepens everyday.
For the past eight years AE has organized successive levels and categories of information into a single site that seeks to express the fragmented world of collectible works on paper as a unified electronic reality that has never, in real life, existed: a single search across computer and national languages to see what have been in the past disperate worlds.
In this way the largest database of auction records today shares a home with Matchmaker, the recurring meta-search, AE Monthly, Footnotes for documenting research, catalogues and listings; and the global full text search of upcoming auction lots.
The AED, as the Americana Exchange Database is called, today includes 2,221,890 full text records and is regularly updated. These days for every AED search we parse more than 600 million words of text to deliver matches in a fraction of a second. Deep, complex book history is now always one click away.
The logic of the site from the beginning was and remains simple. What we find useful we believe others will as well. In addition, in the development of the site unexpected synergies emerged. Recurring appearances at auction have developed into an informal probability of reappearance theory. Significant changes in price and sell-through rates for auction houses have developed into a tool for predicting both decline and recovery in the market. As a result we began charting the auction market by month earlier this year and since July, issue weekly reports on auction activity. We don't have all the answers but we have most of the information on something approaching a real-time basis.
For those who lived through the decline in the postage stamp market between 1980 and 1990 and watched the deep decline in prices of collectible works on paper market at auction this past year there were enough similarities for us to compare what happened then to what was happening now and to note the principal difference: the emergence of week to week clarity in the world of books, manuscripts and ephemera at auction today. Thirty years ago the primary source of pricing information for stamps was the annual Scott's catalogs which did not significantly adjust stamp values to the declining market and thereby probably contributed to the deep recession that became the decade-long Japanese style stagflation. Prices do not always rise and we can not be afraid to register declines.
Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1667. $12,000 to $15,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Chappuzeau, Samuel. The history of jewels, first edition in English. London: T.N. for Hobart Kemp, 1671. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Sowerby, James. Exotic Mineralogy, containing his most realistic mineral depictions, London: Benjamin Meredith, 1811, Arding and Merrett, 1817. $5,000 to $7,000.
![<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/8caddaea-4c1f-47a7-9455-62f53af36e3f.jpg "<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.")
