Rare Book Monthly Articles - September - 2008 Issue

Phillip Gennuso Purchases Zobel Inventory

By Bruce McKinney The remaining general stock of Zobel Book Service was recently sold to the Phillip Gennuso Book Company of Cornwall, New York. The company is located at 246 Main Street. The number of books included in the sale has been estimated at between 40,000 and 90,000 volumes. The material has, for decades, been stored in the Zobel's bookbarn, double-shelved on planks extending ten feet into the air. Because of the large quantity of shelves no one is quite sure of the exact number of books. Mr. Gennuso estimates it as north of 50,000. The price was $3,250 and the material ...

The Zobel Inventory Sold on Craig's List - A Perspective

By Bruce McKinney More than a year ago I heard from Miriam Zobel of the Zobel Book Service that she had some books to sell. I did not initially know that she lives in upstate New York in Clinto...

Posting to Craig's List

By Tom McKinneyCraigslist is a free website that provides a collection of online resources including classified ads and discussion forums. In this article we'll be going over how to take advantage ...

eBay Slashes Fixed Price Listing Fees...<i>But Why?</i>

By Michael Stillman Ebay has announced that it is slashing its charges, effective September 16, on fixed price listings. These are no small adjustments. In an August 20 posting on the eBay site,...

Book Collectors to See Stars

By Bruce McKinney If you are a movie buff or simply like movie stars in the buff I know where you'll be in early December - at the auction, close-out and house cleaning of the Collector's Bookst...

Amazon Purchases AbeBooks... The Book Community Yawns

By Michael Stillman It was like the giant Sequoia tree which fell in the forest. No one knows whether it made a great sound because no one really cared enough to pay attention. A month ago, in w...

Bookselling: Making it Personal

By Renée Magriel Roberts It is Tuesday morning and we have just finished printing up today's orders. Like most days, it is a mix of foreign and domestic orders. We have one book going out to a c...

A Traditional Cataloguer in Search of the New Collector

By Bruce McKinney Thomas, Tom, Cullen, the upstate New York bookseller doing business as the Rockland Bookman in Orchard Park, has issued an interesting catalogue in both traditional and electro...

Bookseller Heaven; or The Thirtieth Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar

By Karen Wright When I wrote an essay about why I should be awarded a scholarship to the Thirtieth Annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, way back last winter, I didn't really expect to get i...

Pierre Beres, Legendary French Bookseller, Dies at 95

By Michael Stillman One of the giants of the 20th century book trade died on July 28 in Paris. Pierre Beres was a bookseller and collector for the latter 75 years of the 20th century, and the so...

History on the Cheap

By Bruce McKinney Recently I searched Google for information about a book I purchased this past month - "A History of the Minisink Region" by Charles E. Stickney. It's the gift to posterity of...

BookFinder Announces the Most Sought After Books of the Year

By Michael Stillman Bookfinder.com recently released its fifth annual report of the most sought after old books on its book searching website. BookFinder's Top 10 reports are fascinating as the ...

The Civil War as Collecting Focus

By Bruce McKinney This month's issue of the Comet focuses on the American Civil War and by extension, all other such wars that are always occuring and seem to have always been occuring. The Civ...

11 New Catalogues Up For Review

Eleven new booksellers' catalogues are considered in this month's AE Reviews. Science, medicine, and natural history are the focus of BL Rootenberg Rare Books. Navigation and travel manuscripts are...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: U.S. / European Shipping Archive 1800-1814. The Widow Bermingham & Sons Collection. €7,000 to €10,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Bunreacht na hÉireann. Constitution of Ireland. An important copy of the First Printing of De Valera’s new Constitution, approved in 1938. Signed by the Constitution Cabinet. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: A Rare Complete Run of the Cuala Press Broadsides. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Grose (Francis). The Antiquities of Ireland, 2vols. folio London (for S. Hooper) 1791. Magnificent Hand-Coloured Copy - Only 25 Copies. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Cantillon (Richard). Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General, Traduit de l'Anglois, Sm. 8vo London (Fletcher Gyles) 1756. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Gregory, (Lady Augusta). Spreading the News: The Rising of the Moon: The Poorhouse (with Douglas Hyde). Being Vol. IX of the Abbey Theatre Series. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Lavery (Lady Hazel). A moving series of three A.L.S. and a Telegram to Gen. Eoin O'Duffy, July-August 1927, expressing her grief at the death of Kevin O'Higgins. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Dampier (Wm.) Nouveau Voyage Autour du Monde, ou l'on descrit en particulier l'Isthme de l'Amerique…, 2 vols. in one, Amsterdam, 1698. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Howell (James). Instructions for Forreine Travel Shewing by what Cours, and in what Compasse of Time…, London, 1642. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Rowling (J.K.) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 8vo, L. (Bloomsbury) 1999, First Edn., First Printing of Deluxe Collectors Edn. Signed. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: James (Wm.) A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of The Late War Between Great Britain and The United States of America. 2 vols. Lond. 1818. €650 to €900.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: The Laws of the United States, Published by Authority, 3 vols. Philadelphia (Richard Folwell) 1796. €600 to €800.

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