Rare Book Monthly Articles - March - 2013 Issue

The ABAA Fair In San Francisco - a success

The ABAA Fair In San Francisco - a success

The ABAA, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, completed their 46th California Book Fair on February 17th and has now decamped for homes, offices and shops across the globe.  They will next meet in New York in April for the New York Book Fair, their most important event in 2013.  The San Francisco fair was well attended.   According to Molly E. Glover of Winslow Associates, agents for the ABAA, attendance was 4,303. John Crichton, of Brick Row Book Shop, ABAA member and former president, as well as past president of the Book Club of California, when asked about the recent ...

Two More Ensnared in Massive Library Theft... More Likely to Come

Two More Ensnared in Massive Library Theft... More Likely to Come

A bookbinder from Bologna has been charged with adding a new dimension to his job description. This is just the latest development in the miserable Girolamini Library theft case. It is now believed...

Somewhere over the rainbow . . .

Somewhere over the rainbow . . .

Some people buy lottery tickets.  Others make discoveries at yard sales.  One of the latter recently scored a big win with the purchase of an 1865 carte-de-visite [CDV] of the Brooklyn Athletics, a...

"An Upstate New York State of Mind"

"An Upstate New York State of Mind"

Most AE Monthly readers know Bruce McKinney as founder of the American Exchange and its impressive database of book auction records (AED); but the 66-year-old bibliophile also has an impressive rec...

Detailed Report Looks at Library Usage in the Digital Age

Detailed Report Looks at Library Usage in the Digital Age

The Pew Research Center has released a report on Library Services in the Digital Age. What we see is a popular, even beloved institution grappling with a world that is changing at speeds unimaginab...

Chris Volk:  The New President of IOBA

Chris Volk:  The New President of IOBA

The International Online Booksellers Association has announced that Chris Volk, a bookseller in Amador County, California has assumed the presidency of the fourteen-year-old bookseller group. In s...

Shapero Rare Books – Exhibiting Books at an Art Fair

Shapero Rare Books – Exhibiting Books at an Art Fair

Shapero Rare Books of London has revealed a few of the items they will be bringing to the annual TEFAF show in the Netherlands this year. TEFAF is an arts and antiques show, but Shapero Rare Books ...

A Map, A Mystery

A Map, A Mystery

Map of the State of New York by Jacob Willets, engraved by James D. Stout Paraclete Potter was a prolific Poughkeepsie printer but he was not artistic.  His printings of the Poughkeepsie Journal b...

Last Publisher Settles E-Book Price-Fixing Case

Last Publisher Settles E-Book Price-Fixing Case

The last of the publishers sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged price fixing of electronic books has thrown in the towel. Macmillan has now joined Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon Schu...

Erasmus & Gueudeville: Master and Translator

Erasmus & Gueudeville: Master and Translator

In Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus, is a masterpiece of the Renaissance. When I read it for the first time, I felt like I was infected by a virus, turning page after page, restlessly gigglin...

Book Collecting Conference This Month at Brigham Young University

Book Collecting Conference This Month at Brigham Young University

The tenth annual A. Dean Larsen Book Collecting Conference will be held at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah on Friday, March 22, 2013, with a group of pre-conference workshops the previous da...

Auctions In March

Auctions In March

Heading into March 66 sales are on the calendar.  This is down from 82 in 2012 and the first down month comparison since May 2012.  It’s too early to know how many lots will be posted and sold but ...

ASA Offers Appraisal Course This Summer

ASA Offers Appraisal Course This Summer

An intensive training program for those wishing to become personal property appraisers is being offered this summer by the American Society of Appraisers at Purchase College, in Purchase, New York ...

Eleven New Catalogues reviewed for March

Eleven New Catalogues reviewed for March

Eleven new catalogues are reviewed in Section Two this month. Lorne Bair Rare Books presents 100 fine literary works. Peter Harrington offers 75 exceptional books and manuscripts. A pair of Dutch a...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Book Week
    December 9-17, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue, inscribed by the author pre-publication. £100,000 to £150,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Autograph sketchleaf including a probable draft for the E flat Piano Quartet, K.493, 1786. £150,000 to £200,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1667. $12,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Chappuzeau, Samuel. The history of jewels, first edition in English. London: T.N. for Hobart Kemp, 1671. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Sowerby, James. Exotic Mineralogy, containing his most realistic mineral depictions, London: Benjamin Meredith, 1811, Arding and Merrett, 1817. $5,000 to $7,000.
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  • Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 9, 2025
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 156: Cornelis de Jode, Americae pars Borealis, double-page engraved map of North America, Antwerp, 1593.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 206: John and Alexander Walker, Map of the United States, London and Liverpool, 1827.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 223: Abraham Ortelius, Typus Orbis Terrarum, hand-colored double-page engraved world map, Antwerp, 1575.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 9, 2025
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 233: Aaron Arrowsmith, Chart of the World, oversize engraved map on 8 sheets, London, 1790 (circa 1800).
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 239: Fielding Lucas, A General Atlas, 81 engraved maps and diagrams, Baltimore, 1823.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 240: Anthony Finley, A New American Atlas, 15 maps engraved by james hamilton young on 14 double-page sheets, Philadelphia, 1826.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 9, 2025
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 263: John Bachmann, Panorama of the Seat of War, portfolio of 4 double-page chromolithographed panoramic maps, New York, 1861.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 265: Sebastian Münster, Cosmographei, Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1558.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 271: Abraham Ortelius, Epitome Theatri Orteliani, Antwerp: Johann Baptist Vrients, 1601.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 9, 2025
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 283: Joris van Spilbergen, Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque Indiae, Leiden: Nicolaus van Geelkercken for Jodocus Hondius, 1619.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 285: Levinus Hulsius, Achtzehender Theil der Newen Welt, 14 engraved folding maps, Frankfurt: Johann Frederick Weiss, 1623.
    Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 341: John James Audubon, Carolina Parrot, Plate 26, London, 1827.

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