Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2011 Issue

Ready or Not?

Rare books don’t rule the world.  They are part of the world and while intellectual, primarily appeal to the emotions.  They are baubles whose appeal for some is magic, for others unimportant.  They are, in the complex online world, now the makings of jigsaw puzzles conceived by individuals, and executed over varying time and with changing focus.  They are the polar opposite of stamp collecting for there are few specifics and many variables and the success of a collection is often not known until long after the last book, manuscript or object has long gathered dust. Traditional collecting ...

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The ABA Takes On Amazon

In June, we reported on a major sales tax battle taking place in the hinterlands between the world's largest online bookseller, Amazon.com, and various American states. The ABA (American Bookseller...

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Breaking:  The Parts are Sometimes Worth More than the Whole

The subject of breaking is one of the touchiest and most controversial in the book world, but if you handle printed material long enough you will certainly come across books and magazines that are ...

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No Borders:  Pioneer Bookseller Closes Down on Both Sides of the Pacific

Borders is no more. The once great bookseller, begun as a small local bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 40 years ago, is closing all of its stores. The firm's President, Mike Edwards, issued a state...

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A Book Auction in Maine August 16th

On August 16th in Fairfield, Maine just off Route 95, at Poulin Antique and Auction Gallery, an authentic collection of gems and rhinestones in the books, maps and ephemera field come up for sale. ...

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Amazon Purchases England's The Book Depository

Amazon.com has reached an agreement to add another bookseller to its stable of book websites. This one is The Book Depository, an English online-only book company. The Book Depository describes its...

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Leslie Hindman No. 167 - an interesting sale

Leslie Hindman, the Chicago auction house, continues to increase its footprint in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera fields with the issuance of a sumptuous catalogue, No. 167, a full size p...

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A Whale of a Sale

The C. H. Booth Library Fair has done it again.  A great spirit, plenty of volunteers, an energetic audience and voila you have a success.  The mystery is in the elbow grease and good thinking. In...

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A 17,000-Book Auction Sells Out

A book auction was held recently in Minnesota, and a most atypical one at that. The starting bids were exceptionally low, though perhaps not for the rather ordinary material offered.  Books were pr...

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Old World under New Management

Old World Auctions has moved to Richmond, Virginia under the new leadership of Eliane and Jon Dotson.  For the last 15 years, Curt and Marti Griggs had been growing the business until they decided ...

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Google's New Image Search - Matching Pictures on the Internet

This is a work in progress. It is not quite up to a Google word search. It's understandable. Matching words is one thing, matching pictures something else. That sounds near impossible, but give Goo...

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Why doesn't this happen in my town?

Space is apparently at a premium in Jerusalem, and it has gotten so bad that the National Library on the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus has been caught throwing away important books with the ...

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10 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we review 10 new catalogues in Section II, with many of the new ones quite topic specific. David D.Newell presents a collection of Shaker literature. Bruce McKittrick Rare Books has a se...

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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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