Rare Book Monthly Articles - December - 2005 Issue

Abebooks Purchases BookFinder, Looks to the Future

Abebooks Purchases BookFinder, Looks to the Future

By Michael Stillman Abebooks announced this past month the purchase of book meta-search engine BookFinder.com. BookFinder searches the listings of dozens of online sites, including Abebooks and its numerous competitors, such Alibris, Biblio, Amazon, Half.com, and a couple of dozen smaller sites. All are treated equally. In operation since 1997 (antiquity for the internet), it is a very helpful and well-respected site among those with a need or passion for locating old books. Though small, with only two full-time employees, BookFinder brings a prestigious reputation beyond its size to ne...

One lot tells the story

One lot tells the story

By Bruce McKinney Copies of the United States Constitution printed in the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1787, have been raising eyebrows for most of the 20th century. ...

A Bookselling Sci-Fi Nightmare: The Computers Take Over the Marketplace

A Bookselling Sci-Fi Nightmare: The Computers Take Over the Marketplace

by Renée Magriel Roberts I don't know how many of you remember "Colossus: The Forbin Project" on the big screen. Released in 1970, this movie was the progenitor of all computers-run-amok-and-des...

At Auction:  Los Angeles Imprints 1843 - 1873

At Auction: Los Angeles Imprints 1843 - 1873

By Bruce McKinney An interesting collection of rare Los Angeles imprints and ephemera comes to market on December 2nd in a sale organized by Johns' Western Gallery of San Francisco. The official...

Alibris Eliminates Its $1 Per Book Sold Program

Alibris Eliminates Its $1 Per Book Sold Program

By Michael Stillman Alibris announced a step last week to eliminate some of its smallest merchants, or "hobby sellers." Interestingly, it was a reversal of a recent step designed to encourage t...

At Christies Fantasy takes Flight

At Christies Fantasy takes Flight

By Bruce McKinney If we could close our eyes and wake up with one printed item in the attic, closet or under the Christmas tree it might well be the eight volume Audubon elephant folio "The Bird...

ILAB Launches New Website

ILAB Launches New Website

By Michael Stillman ILAB recently completed a major overhaul of its website, which gives us an opportunity to look at this book dealers' organization and its bookselling website. ILAB stands fo...

Cinematic Diversions

Cinematic Diversions

By Bruce McKinney We get our information in myriad ways: through books, the internet, television and conversation to name some. We see movies on television, occasionally online and of course ...

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  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    26th March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    26th March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000

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