Heading into fall buyers and sellers will be meeting head one in a series of auctions that will illuminate the strength and direction of the market. A great deal is at stake. As has been the case all year auction houses are handling increasing volume while recently experiencing a marginally lower percentage of completed sales [see charts]. A reasonable conclusion is that reserves are bit higher than buyers are comfortable to reach. The why is less certain. One interpretation is that the market, while orderly, is having trouble absorbing increasing volume. Another is that the economy i...
Swann, the New York auctioneers, are holding the first of three scheduled sales of material from the collection of Eric Caren, the life-long bibliophile. The title of the sale is “How History Unfo...
Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books (ABAA) in Alameda, CA is well known in the book world as a dealer in Dickens and a specialist in other rare and collectible authors writing in English. He also has a ...
The fall book auction season will be starting very soon now. Fall is traditionally the busiest time of the year for auctions. After Labor Day in the U.S., almost everyone has returned home from the...
Heritage Auctions is holding three auctions in Beverly Hills in mid-September and each of them will be of interest to those who covet valuable paper:
On Monday, September 12th The Jerry Weist Coll...
This month there are nine eCatalogues from AE Members. If you are at least a research member you can post catalogues as you issue them and we are more and more closely linking them to AE Monthly. ...
This has not been a good month for large, chain bookstores, especially so for their investors. Physical retailing has been battling online selling for a decade, and physical books have been battlin...
AE is celebrating its 9th birthday this September 3rd and it seems like only yesterday that we began. Many of our original members are members still, a testament to their patience and our unending...
Why? It's a question John J. O'Brien must have asked himself a thousand times. When you make millions of dollars, there are so many things you can do with your money. One of those is to go into the...
In fact they won’t shut up and apparently also do not die. Lest you assume from the headline that death has been conquered the answer in one particular case is alleged to be stayed but not stopped...
A love of books is a wonderful thing. It can lead one to knowledge, to an appreciation of all things. Books make us better people. Then there is Amanda Cortright. Her love of books led her down the...
I recently purchased a painting on eBay for $1,182. It’s small and faintly familiar. The artist is George Inness and the subject appears to be the Catskills, possibly looking south. The underlyi...
There is one less subject schoolchildren in Indiana will have to master when school reopens this fall - cursive. For younger readers unfamiliar with that term, it has nothing to do with bad languag...
This month we review nine new booksellers' catalogues. Sotheran's boasts a catalogue few can match - a 250th anniversary catalogue with at least one entry for each of the past 250 years. Hordern Ho...
ALDE, Apr. 8: GUEVARA (ANTONIO DE). Histoire de Marc-Aurèle, Empereur Romain, vray miroir et horloge des Princes. Paris, Pierre et Galliot du Pré, frères, 1565. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: HEURES DE LA VIERGE. Horæ in laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ ad usum Romanum. Paris, Charles L'Angelier, 1556. €4,000 to €5,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: MONTAIGNE (MICHEL DE). Les Essais. Édition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l'autheur… Paris, Abel L'Angelier, 1595. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [ROJAS (FERNANDO DE)]. Celestina, tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea, tradotta de lingua castigliana in italiano idioma… Venise, 1531. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CAMÕES (LUÍS DE). Os Lusiadas. Lisbonne, Pedro Crasbeeck, 1613. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Bruxelles, Roger Velpius & Huberto Antonio, 1611. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: LA FONTAINE (JEAN DE). Fables choisies, mises en vers. Paris, Denys Thierry et Claude Barbin, 1678-1694. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Madrid, Joaquin Ibarra, 1780. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: DIDEROT (DENIS) ET JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris, 1751-1765. €15,000 to €20,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). Les Laboureurs. Poème tiré de Jocelyn… Lyon, J. A. Henry, 1883. €8,000 to €10,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. Livre de prières tissé d'après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Lyon, [A. Roux], 1886. €5,000 to €6,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts & Objects from Three Important Collections Open for Bidding 2-17 April
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun]. Le Roman de la Rose, [Geneva or Lyons, c.1481], first printed edition of the most important medieval French vernacular poem. £200,000 to £300,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Castiglione. Il libro del cortegiano. [Venice], April 1528, first edition, in a magnificent binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Jacobus de Cessolis. Schachzabelbuch, Strasbourg, 1483, von der Lasa copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: World Championship, 1972. A collection of 84 press photographs of the famed match between Spassky and Fischer. £2,000 to £3,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Ben Franklin. Autograph letter signed, to Lord Shelburne, British Prime Minister, during peace negotiations, November 1782. £15,000 to £20,000.
