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<center><b>Potter & Potter Auctions<br>Nobu Shirase and the Japanese Antarctic Expedition: the Collection of Chet Ross<br>October 12, 2023</b><b>Potter & Potter, Oct. 12:</b> [BYRD]. VEER, Willard Van der and Joseph T. RUCKER, cinematographers. The 35mm motion picture Akeley camera that filmed the Academy Award-winning documentary “With Byrd at the South Pole”. $30,000 to $50,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Oct. 12:</b> [SHIRASE, Nobu, his copy]. RYUKEI, Yano. <i>Young Politicians of Thebes: Illustrious Tales of Statesmanship.</i> Tokyo(?), 1881-84. $15,000 to $20,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Oct. 12:</b> SHACKLETON, Ernest H. <i>The Antarctic Book.</i> Winter Quarters 1907-1909 [dummy copy of the supplement to: <i>The Heart of the Antarctic</i>]. London, 1909. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Oct. 12:</b> [USS BEAR]. The original auxiliary deck wheel from the famed USS Bear, 1874-1933. “PROBABLY THE MOST FAMOUS SHIP IN THE HISTORY OF THE COAST GUARD” (USCG). $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Oct. 12:</b> HENSON, Matthew. <i>A Negro Explorer at the North Pole.</i> With a forward by Robert Peary. Introduction by Booker T. Washington. New York, [1912]. $3,000 to $4,000.
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<center><b>Gonnelli: Auction 46 Books<br>Autographs & Manuscripts<br>Oct 3rd-5th 2023</b><b>Gonnelli:</b> Tilson - Zanotto, Il vero tema. 2011. Starting price 150 €<b>Gonnelli:</b> Munari, Storia di un filo. Starting price 400 €<b>Gonnelli:</b> Debord, Contre le cinéma. 1964. Starting price 150 €<b>Gonnelli:</b> Futurism books and ephemera<b>Gonnelli:</b> Travel books<b>Gonnelli:</b> Medicine books<b>Gonnelli:</b> Levaillant, Histoire naturelle des perroquets. 1801-1805. Starting price 52.000 €<b>Gonnelli:</b> Carrera, Il gioco de gli scacchi. 1617. Starting price 3200 €<b>Gonnelli:</b> Vergilius, Opera. 1515. Starting price 800 €
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<b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b><b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Asia.- Mandeville (Sir John). <i>Tractato bellissimo delle piu maravigliose cose & piu motabile che sitrovino nelle parte delmondo,</i> Florence, [Lorenzo Morgiani], [?1505] or possibly, 1496-99. £40,000 to £60,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Arabic ms.- Ghazaliyaat Kan'at al-Arabi [Divan of Poetry written in Arabic], illuminated manuscript in Arabic, Safavid Persia (probably Isfahan), [second quarter of 16th century]. £12,000 to £16,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Foxe (John). <i>Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching matters of the Church…,</i> first edition, dwellyng ouer Aldersgate, [20th March, 1563]. £15,000 to £20,000.<b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b><b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Barrie (J.M.) <i>Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up,</i> first play edition, signed presentation inscription from the author "To my dear Jane Pan", 1928. £3,000 to £4,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Gillray (James). John Bull taking a Luncheon: -or- British Cooks, cramming Old Grumble-Gizzard, with Bonne-Chére, etching with hand-colouring, 1798. £1,500 to £2,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Middle East.- Roberts (David). <i>The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia,</i> 6 vol. bound as 4, first edition, 1842-49. £12,000 to £18,000.<b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b><b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Greenwood (C. & J.) <i>Map of London made from an Actual Survey in the Years 1824, 1825 & 1826...,</i> first edition, engraved map, 1827. £15,000 to £20,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Newton (Sir Isaac). <i>Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light…,</i> first edition, 1704. £15,000 to £20,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Smith (Percy John Delf). Collection of 19 original preliminary drawings for "Twelve Drypoints of the War 1914-1918", circa 1914-1918; together with 11 drypoints from "Twelve Drypoints of the War 1914-1918", 1925. £15,000 to<b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b><b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Guild of Women Binders.- Watts (Alaric A.) <i>Lyrics of the Heart: with other poems</I>, in a stunning richly gilt green crushed morocco by the Guild of Women Binders, Longman, 1851. £12,000 to £18,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Cosway binding.- Dodgson (Charles Lutwidge). "Lewis Carroll". <i>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,</i> in a Cosway binding with miniatures by Miss C.B. Currie, 1868. £10,000 to £15,000.<b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Fleming (Ian). <i>Casino Royale,</i> first edition, first impression, 1953. £18,000 to £22,000.
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<center><b>Swann Auction Galleries View Our Record Breaking Results</b><b>Swann:</b> Charles Monroe Schulz, <i>The Peanuts gang,</i> complete set of 13 drawings, ink, 1971. Sold June 15 — $50,000.<b>Swann:</b> Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Family Archive of Photographs & Letters. Sold June 1 — $60,000.<b>Swann:</b> Victor H. Green, <i>The Negro Motorist Green Book,</i> New York, 1949. Sold March 30 — $50,000.<b>Swann:</b> William Shakespeare, <i>King Lear; Othello;</i> [and] <i>Anthony & Cleopatra;</i> Extracted from the First Folio, London, 1623. Sold May 4— $185,000.<center><b>Swann Auction Galleries View Our Record Breaking Results</b><b>Swann:</b> William Samuel Schwartz, <i>A Bridge in Baraboo, Wisconsin,</i> oil on canvas, circa 1938. Sold February 16 — $32,500.<b>Swann:</b> Lena Scott Harris, <i>Group of approximately 65 hand-colored botanical studies, all apparently California native plants,</i> hand-colored silver prints, circa 1930s. Sold February 23 — $37,500.<b>Swann:</b> Suzanne Jackson, <i>Always Something To Look For,</i> acrylic & pencil on linen canvas, circa 1974. Sold April 6 — $87,500.<b>Swann:</b> Gustav Klimt, <i>Das Werk von Gustav Klimt,</i> complete with 50 printed collotype plates, Vienna & Leipzig, 1918. Sold June 15 — $68,750.
Rare Book Monthly
Articles - August - 2010 Issue
Cataloging the American Experience: with text and video
By Bruce McKinney
Bonhams has released the first of six online videos that will document, month by month, the steps leading to the December sale of a significant collection of Americana - The American Experience: 1630 - 1890. The final segment in January will reprise the sale.
Auctions do not spring full grown from imagination though it can seem that way. Keen observers may hear that something is coming but almost always it's the solid clunk of the heavy catalogue deposited at the front door or increasingly, searches of upcoming auctions online that bring one's first awareness of a sale. Such events, the almost 500 documented book, manuscript, map and ephemera auctions that are conducted each year around the world, are in fact centipedes of steps and parts. Most auctions are compilations, a subject heading embracing the consignments of many. Once in a while what's offered are entire collections, unified collecting wholes, a handful, an armful, a shelf and sometimes a library full of material acquired over time by a single individual to be dispersed in a few sessions.
Such sales are the gold standard of the works on paper field, for they are the opportunity for auction house scribes to understand both the individual items and the whole of the collection and so armed weave a tapestry of individual descriptions into a unified sale, often without the luxury of sufficient time or the opportunity to concentrate on a single sale. Cataloguers are asked to write War and Peace on a deadline every ninety days. Such sales, when they succeed, succeed for the consignor, the house and buyers. For the cataloguers there is something more, the satisfaction of altering both perception and value. And occasionally there is wider recognition for the well executed effort. Great sales produce, as a byproduct, much of the great documentation of the field that future dealers, collectors and libraries will rely on. For this we depend, to a great extent, on cataloguers. Some do yeoman work for a few years on the way to other jobs and other professions. Others rise to eminence, their judgments achieving importance and value over time, their enduring reward to be quoted as an authority, their words to count. Every catalogue offers this possibility, the single owner sales though most often the fertile ground from which new information and clever presentation, grow into lasting contributions.
For this collection that Bonhams will sell on December 2nd in New York the principal cataloguers are Christina Geiger and Adam Stackhouse, the overall strategy organized by Martin Gammon.
Auctions are the result of a thousand decisions and thousands of hours of preparation. Bonhams has prepared an initial 7-minute video that introduces the sale and the cataloguing effort underway in San Francisco. This is the first of 6 monthly installments culminating with the auction in December and outcome reported in January. The first installment was filmed and edited by Mike Noyes.
Many will find this series interesting. The inner-workings of auctions are almost always invisible. For those who may consign this is what the process is all about.
Catalogues will be distributed by early November. Material will be exhibited in the United States and Europe. If you would like to receive the catalogue simply click here to be added to the list.
Click for the Bonhams video: Anatomy of an Auction Episode I.