Rare Book Monthly Articles - June - 2009 Issue

Institutions Are Still Buying

By Bruce McKinney Recently I asked Terry Belanger, MacArthur fellow, full professor and Director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, about institutional buying and he encouraged me to contact a cross-section of institutional buyers for perspective. Their outlook is encouraging if sanguine. I spoke to Daniel De Simone, David Whitesell, Lynda Claassen, Doug Erickson, Martin Antonetti and Katherine Reagan, all of whom convey a commitment to continuing acquisitions although their budgets, prospects, logic and approaches differ substantially. They are all headed in the s...

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Trends in Book Auction Prices - New Charts Let You See Where the Market Is Going

By Michael Stillman This month, the Americana Exchange initiates coverage of what we call "Trends in Book Auction Prices." We now provide three graphs that look at auction prices and sell-throug...

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A Market Under Pressure

By Bruce McKinney The Books, Manuscripts and Ephemera market at auction, as evidenced by both declining prices and percentage of lots sold, continues to be under extreme pressure. In the rooms,...

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A Stiff Prison Sentence for Book Theft: Equal Justice for All?

By Michael Stillman We have seen several high profile book theft cases come down in recent years. The target is often a library, in particular, the rare book room. Some people simply stuff a boo...

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Cause Marketing: Increase Sales (and do a lot of good)

by Renée Magriel Roberts As the mortgage foreclosure crisis has been rippling throughout the United States with disastrous effect, our town (Harwich, located on Cape Cod in Massachusetts) has ce...

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The Wiki Control Panel Revised

By Bruce McKinney Listen carefully and you can hear the next generation of shoes dropping. Material everyday is being organized and digitized by subject and collection for the web and scholars,...

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Gutenberg of Dust Jackets Discovered

By Michael Stillman A long time ago, a bit earlier than previously thought, some printer or bookseller believed it would be a good idea to protect the cover of a book from dust before purchase. ...

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Liberty & the American Revolution

By Bruce McKinney Princeton University, the alma mater of Sid Lapidus, has published an exhibition catalogue, Liberty the American Revolution, to accompany the display of material that Mr. Lapi...

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Around the Books Sites: Alibris Offers Listing Tools, Biblio Opens U.K. Site, Abe's Latest Top Ten

By Michael Stillman Alibris has announced the availability of a set of tools to help their sellers manage and improve their listings and set prices. The tools are available free to Alibris selle...

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Spend an Afternoon in the World of Books

By Bruce McKinney Whidbey Island, an hour from Seattle's downtown, is a worthwhile day trip, a pristine place where a community of 58,000 lives and tens of thousands visit, if mostly in the su...

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Mission Seeks to Find the Lost Discoverer of the South Pole

By Michael Stillman Some of the greatest nonfiction writers were those who participated in history. Among the greatest of the great are the explorers who expanded the tiny pre-Columbian known un...

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Sixteen New Catalogues Reviewed

This month we review 16 new bookseller catalogues we received. Hordern House has created a spectacular catalogue for a collection of works relating to Captain William Bligh, noted for Mutiny on the...

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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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