Rare Book Monthly Articles - July - 2009 Issue

Perspective on Books and the Net

By Bruce McKinney These days the world of collectible books is a warren of categories - on line listings, shops on Main Street, catalogues on line and through the mail, presentations at trade shows, and auctions, both traditional and eBay. These categories function independently. They sell to different customers - dividing the world of rare and collectible books into a mosaic of hundreds if not thousands of pieces. The scale of the venues for old and collectible books is exponentially increasing, the number of dealers, number of books, the number of auction houses and sales all incr...

Read More

W. Graham Arader: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"

By Bruce McKinney On June 19th the most recent and certainly not final chapter of the Graham Arader story was written in the auction rooms at Sotheby's, as they conducted a 202 lot sale of selec...

Read More

<i>In The News:</i> Crime and Lawsuits

By Michael Stillman A couple of the more notable cases involving books and bookselling have been delayed or deleted. The case of Raymond Scott, of Durham, England, was postponed until August whe...

Read More

Google Books: A Tool for Book Collectors

By Bruce McKinney I'm using Google Books to identify additional early [or old if you prefer] material for the Rondout Kingston Wiki Bibliography that I'm building on AE. The subject and purpos...

Read More

Browsers as Servers: Is Change Coming to Bookselling?

By Michael Stillman Opera, the somewhat obscure Norwegian internet browser and software designer, recently announced the development of a browser that also lets your computer function as a serve...

Read More

$5-$10 Million Cache of Books and Other Antiquities, Found in Small Chicago Home, Returned to Italy

By Michael Stillman What the FBI has described as a "literal treasure trove of artifacts," 1,600 relics including over 1,000 books and manuscripts, has been returned to Italy. The collection was...

Read More

Bibliopolis and Bookhound - Birds of a Feather

By Karen Wright I had been trying to download my antiquated Access book inventory to Bookhound 7c through Biblio.com off and on for months. Bibliopolis, creators of Bookhound, allows the bookse...

Read More

Auction Updates: By email every Sunday night

By Bruce McKinney Every 18 hours, more or less, a documented traditional auction completes somewhere in the world. The sale may be in North America, Europe, Central America or Australia; in New...

Read More

Long Missing Lincoln Letter Returns Home

By Michael Stillman An interesting Lincoln letter, missing from the National Archives for many decades, perhaps longer, made its way home recently, a gift from a collector who purchased it from ...

Read More

Great Gatsby! There is a Light for Collectible Books

By Michael Stillman This has been a tough year for the book trade. Our own figures, gathered from auction results around the world, indicate a drop of 30%-plus in prices since the peak a little ...

Read More

Exploiting Marketable Skills - The Bookseller as Knowledge Manager

By Renée Magriel Roberts I can't seem to make the same dinner twice. Can't do it. I know that homemaker skills may have traditionally had the pot roast night or the fish night, with well-honed r...

Read More

An Update on Summer Possibilities

By Bruce McKinney We now live in the internet age. This is the same age that just ten years ago was called the television age, which wrested the title from the "age of print" in the 1960s. The...

Read More

Now Available: The Book All Collectors of L. Frank Baum and Oz Must Have

By Michael Stillman A book has been published that is an absolute must for anyone who collects L. Frank Baum, the Oz books, or anything closely related. The title is The Book Collector's Guide t...

Read More

19 New Catalogues Up for Review

This month, we review 19 new bookseller catalogues. Literature is the focus of the William Reese Company, while James Pepper Rare Books features literature and film, James Cummins Bookseller litera...

Read More

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.

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions