Once again a year has come to an end, meaning it is time to look back at the top 500 prices paid at auction in 2014 in the field of books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera (see end of article for a description of what is included). Once again, there was one eight-digit item at the top that far exceeded anything else. Last year, the Bay Psalm Book went for more than double the second highest priced item. This year, it was more than triple.
More telling about the overall health of the upper end of the market was the price at #500. This year, the low end of the top 500 was more than $10,000 ...
Bill Reese, the leading rare bookseller in the United States over the past quarter century, demonstrated convincingly at the November 24th Doyle New York sale why he ranks at the top of his field. ...
Paul Krugman in his book The Conscience of a Liberal, published in 2007, describes the economic history of America since the Civil War as a succession of changing perspectives on taxation. This led...
Abebooks.com has released its list of the 50 most expensive sales on its website during 2014. We all know that some very high prices are paid on occasion for books, but through a click on a website...
The first movie begins with a screen crawl in medias res with Episode IV and in a mythical time and place, classically the locus for the shaman’s struggle for self-realization, growth and unificati...
Has the value of archives of notable writers become so great that buyers no longer dare speak their cost, for fear of driving up future prices to even more outrageous levels? It would seem so, at l...
There is some strong anecdotal evidence that for some people in the antiquarian book trade 2014 was a good year.
For Bruce McKinney, 68, Americana Exchange publisher in San Francisco, this was ...
They say that bad things like cigarettes and alcohol can lead to habits much worse, like hard drugs. How about book theft – can that lead to something even more extreme? Here is a strange case that...
Women, states a critic, carry their natural loquacity, their abundant, restless and unquenchable verbosity in everything they arrogantly undertake to say, and when infatuated with the bel-esprit, t...
An unusual archeological dig is taking in place in Glasgow, Scotland, for old books. An archeological search for books makes one think they are looking for some ancient stone tablets or cave drawin...
A record price has apparently been paid for a photograph – a whopping $6.5 million. We say “apparently” as it was a private sale, and it is impossible to know for certain whether there has been a l...
The Rosenbach will be exhibiting some newly discovered works of Irish author-playwright-poet Oscar Wilde opening on January 23. Now officially the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the...
There is a new domain name suffix coming to an internet connection near you soon that may be of great interest to those in the book trade, or those who just like books a lot. That domain root is .b...
We begin the new year with 14 new booksellers' catalogues to review. Whitmore Rare Books has created a catalogue of major literary works. The Kelmscott Bookshop features fine presses and 19th centu...
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.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/00d5fd41-2542-4a80-b119-4886d4b9925f.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.")
