Rare Book Monthly Articles - April - 2013 Issue

Dorothy Sloan Auction No. 23:  an important sale

The Dorothy Sloan Auction No. 23 of Americana approaches. The sale will be on April 4th and 5th, 2013. These sales, one or so a year, are prepared with a care most associated with the skeptic.  Auctions are resurrections, the always-uncertain process of reconfirmation.  Fates will be decided in the rooms but this does not mean that the lawyerly Ms. Sloan will leave any information about the lots in the docket unstated.  She always makes her case and it makes her a creditable advocate for sellers and a trusted source for buyers.  She takes this seriously, as interested for the buyer and alwa...

Read More

Booksellers Win Right to Resell Secondhand Books in U.S. Supreme Court Decision

In a major case that pitted used book sellers, libraries, museums and other retailers against book publishers, the U.S. Supreme Court came down squarely on the booksellers' side. The Court ruled th...

Read More

The Book War at the French Auction House Drouot

Things change, so does the French auction house Drouot. The walls of the common parts have been repainted in white, and a gorgeous modern staircase now leads you to the basement rooms. On March the...

Read More

The Market versus the Book

The weekly auction update is our effort to separate the long-term history of books [and manuscripts, maps and ephemera] from the ever-changing immediate market for them. There’s a tendency to think...

Read More

To Co-Op or Not to Co-Op

Our little “Open by Appointment” bookstore is perched at 6200 feet in the Northern Nevada Mountains in Virginia City. But, if it weren’t for my online sales, we could not continue to operate. It is...

Read More

April in New York

53rd ABAA NY Fair On Thursday April 11th, as they have for more than 50 years, members of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, will hol...

Read More

The “Finest Mormon Collection in Private Hands” Offered by Michael Vinson Americana

Michael Vinson Americana has acquired the core of what Peter Crawley, author of Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church, called “the finest and most important Mormon collection in private han...

Read More

The 1913 Armory Show Revisited – The New Spirit

100th Anniversary of Landmark 20th Century Exhibit Many special events on-line sites join in celebration The Armory Show, even 100 years later the name alone conjures up superlatives: it was hug...

Read More

So many items, so little time

The Roy Davids sale of Poetical Manuscripts Portraits of Poets  [A-K] at Bonhams in London on April 10th will test the mettle and self-confidence of the most serious collectors of poetry for there...

Read More

Change as Opportunity

Forty years ago Victor Grace and his wife Jackie lived in New Jersey where they built a career and a life around the search for and later sale of beautiful material.  Victor from the outset was and...

Read More

Freeman's Auctioneers, April 4th, 5th and 17th

Freeman’s Auctioneers Appraisers in Philadelphia is holding three sales in April that warrant attention: Rare Books and Manuscripts on the 4th, Posters, Maps and Other Graphics on the 5th, and Ame...

Read More

Timothy Hughes Rare and Early Newspapers Launches Their New Website

Timothy Hughes Rare and Early Newspapers recently launched a new website. If you like old newspapers, and I will admit to this being a passion of mine, you will love the new site. They have managed...

Read More

Someone Very Rich Still Believes in Newspapers

Do you still believe in newspapers? Many have written them off, consigned them to virtual extinction over the next decade or so. However, one person who does still believe in newspapers is America'...

Read More

Dreweatts and Bloomsbury Auctions Acquired by the Noble Investment [UK] PLC Group

These are days when the future of bookselling is a bit clouded and the coin and fabric of the field seemingly subject to relentless retesting.  Even so there are glimmers of new realities that expl...

Read More

Barnes & Noble: Yesterday's Goliath Struggles to Survive

If the typical, private bookseller is finding these to be complicated times for retail, then perhaps they can sympathize with their dreaded competitor from the 1990s, Barnes Noble. Barnes Noble s...

Read More

Auctions in April

This April, as of March 28th, 99 sales with more than 25,000 lots are scheduled.  Dates occasionally change, others are added and a few delayed but the events as shown here are substantially what t...

Read More

Attention Appraisers: ASA Hosts Conference on Trusts and Estates

The American Society of Appraisers will be hosting a conference on the role of appraisers in trusts and estates from May 1-3 in Arlington, Virginia (just outside of Washington, D.C.). The purpose i...

Read More

17 New Bookseller Catalogues Reviewed

For April, we received 17 new catalogues to review. No fooling! The William Reese Company has reached a milestone – their 300th catalogue. It features exceptional Americana. The Raab Collection has...

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