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CHRISTIE’S
Valuable Books and Manuscripts
London auction
13 December
Find out moreChristie’s, Explore now
TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000Christie’s, Explore now
VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000Christie’s, Explore now
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000Christie’s, Explore now
A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000Christie’s, Explore now
AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
C.1311. £100,000–150,000 -
Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800
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Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Fleming (Ian). Dr. No, 1958; You Only Live Twice, 1964, 1st editions, presentation copies. £20,000-30,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Doyle (Arthur Conan). The Sign of Four, 1st edition, 1890. £5,000-8,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Huxley (Aldous). Brave New World, 1st edition, London: Chatto & Windus, 1932. £3,000-5,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Stenbock (Eric Stanislaus). The Shadow of Death, 1st edition, 1893. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Tolkien (J. R. R.). The Lord of the Rings, 1st one volume edition, signed, 1968. £3,000-5,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Orwell (George). Animal Farm, 1st edition, London: Secker & Warburg, 1945. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Cunard (Nancy, editor). Negro, Anthology made by Nancy Cunard, 1st edition, 1934. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Table Game. [The Little Artist Magic Painter, Austria], circa 1775. £1,000-1,500Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Kirnig (Paul, 1891-1955). Austria, Vienna: Christophe Reisser's Söhne, c. 1930. £700-1,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: A collection of letters including from T. S. Eliot, Siegfried Sassoon, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley et al, from the Lady Ottoline Morrell collection. £700-1,000.Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: The Gentleman's Magazine, or Monthly Intelligencer. 175 volumes, 1731-1844. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Mont Blanc peepshow. Mr Albert Smith's Ascent of Mont Blanc in Miniature, 1854. £1,500-2,000 -
Bonhams: FREDERICK DOUGLASS RETURNS TO AMERICA A FREE MAN. Sold for $353,175.Bonhams: TORTILLA FLAT INSCRIBED TO STEINBECK'S LITTLE SISTER, MARY. Sold for $57,600.Bonhams: A FRAGMENT OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF OF MICE AND MEN, EATEN BY THE DOG. Sold for $12,800.Bonhams: KEPLER INVESTIGATES PLANETARY MOTION. Sold for $1,008,375.Bonhams: AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT DRAFT LEAF FROM DARWIN'S DESCENT OF MAN, SIGNED BY DARWIN AT THE FOOT. Sold for $239,775.Bonhams: AUDOBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. THE BIRDS OF AMERICA. Sold for $32,000.Bonhams: FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN (1706-1790). AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED. Sold for $38,175.Bonhams: MILNE, A.A. (1882-1956). BOXED SET OF 4 CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Sold for $20,480.
Rare Book Monthly
It's in the Mail
By Bruce McKinney
Shame steals into town in the dark of night, pride and ambition strolls down Main Street at high noon. And then there is the Floyd E. Risvold Collection - American Expansion & The Journey West, a collection of Postal History and related materials that over three days in New York in late January brought $8,128,264. This one was an open top Duesenberg with Miss America holding roses and waving to the crowd on New Year's Day. This doesn't happen often. The sale was organized by Spink-Shreves Galleries and held in New York.
Floyd Risvold was a serious collector of the American Westward Expansion who saw that postal history, the envelopes, postal cancellations and the letters sent- together contained an emerging portrait of America that collectors would someday value highly. That the someday would be January 2010 is probably surprising to some, given the difficult economy. While he was buying [1970 to 1990 roughly] the field was nascent, the buds in April that become the fruit in September. He was a prescient collector with good taste, his judgment reconfirmed 1,296 times as all but one lot sold.
He did not live to see his collection sold for he passed away at 97 a year ago. But he wrote two books late in life: Minnesota Territory in Postmarks, Letters and Covers, and A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Conspiracy of 1865 that now trade in the used book market.
The sale makes it onto the pages of AE Monthly and into the AED as part of the permanent search because about a hundred lots were books, most bought for reference, some collectible. Mr. Risvold wasn't a skilled book collector but his judgment about stamps was exceptional.
The sale was interesting because it was marketed as postal history. The promotion was extensive and finely tuned to stamp collectors and those interested American history. It was not pitched to book collectors mainly because the 149 lots of books and ephemera [of 1,294 lots in total] were almost an after-thought, not the focus of the sale but rather an adjunct. Ultimately the books and ephemera, 11.5% of the lots, would amount to only 7.3% of the outcome, or $589,958. In the postal history portion, which included both rare cancellations and important manuscript content, single items brought a third as much.
By dollar volume pride of place went to lot 330, a letter written in 1836 from Stephen F. Austin, at that point in Tennessee, to Gen. John McCalla to raise troops for Texas. The letter has a portion torn away but never mind. It is an important Texas artifact and brought $207,100. Three other lots brought more than $100,000.