This is not likely to be a major surprise to those in the book trade, but results compiled from book and paper auctions showed a 7% decline in prices in 2015 from the previous year. After several years of increases, nervousness about the economy, perhaps even more in Europe than America, has taken its toll. Threats to the viability of the European union, financial meltdown in Greece, Russian meddling in eastern Europe, threats of terrorism emanating from a complex web of brutal rivalries in the Middle East, and a shattering of the economic miracle of China, have combined to create an uncert...
The Rare Book Hub is an information project about books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera, and the goal is a complete record of auction lots offered and prices realized over the past 150 years. It i...
A few weeks back, an investment firm in London caused some stir when they published a list of book prices and their increase in values over the past two decades. The gains were quite impressive. Pe...
Ah yes, “professional standards,” in the world of online book selling, particularly of antiquarian books and paper, that term has many meanings. The bar can be set high - as with membership in the ...
In December I received a quote from an RBH/AE member, George Krzyminski whose business, Certain Books, lives online at www.certainbooks.com. I write about this both because the material offered an...
In what could be described as saving the best for last, the most expensive book sold at auction in 2015 was hammered down on December 22 at Sotheby's in New York, the last major sale of the year. T...
Over the weekend of February 12-14 more than 200 ABAA and ILAB dealers will converge on Pasadena for the 49th ABAA California Book Fair. In even numbered years the fair takes place in Southern Cal...
While the ABAA hosts its California Book Fair in Pasadena in southern California a week later, in northern California in San Mateo at the County Event Center - Fiesta Hall for the first time, Nancy...
One of the most important book auctions of 2015 took place at Sotheby's in New York in the final month of the year. As can happen when the very best of collections are offered for sale, the figures...
Exceptional sales require exceptional catalogues. On your coffee table, weighing 6 pounds, being several hundred full colour pages thick and more than 10 inches tall, here is the catalogue of the f...
February 4th is a date Americana collectors want to have circled on their calendars. Featuring a particularly strong array of revolutionary era and religious material, Swann Auction Galleries’ sale...
Serious book collectors may be in a bit of a conundrum this February. From what I’ve heard from my Dad Bruce, it’s pretty rare for there to be a book collecting couple. Usually, one person is the c...
The New York Public Library recently survived a round in its attempt to recover several books almost certainly stolen from it decades ago. The current possessor's attempt to have the library's clai...
For those of you who thought you missed the annual Boxborough Paper Fair, the good news is, you didn't. The massive snowstorm that shut down the Atlantic coast last month forced the cancellation of...
Six new catalogues are reviewed in Section Two of Rare Book Monthly for February. From the Lawbook Exchange we have American law from 1735-1987. David Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books has American pam...
Sotheby’s, July 14: Henry De La Beche. "Awful Changes," 1830. $6,000 to $9,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 11]. Flight Plan, Complete Original Printing Signed by Buzz Aldrin. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Thomas Alva Edison. Documents Establishing and Ending the Edison Electric Railway Company. $20,000 to $30,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Richard P. Feynman. Feynman's Lectures on Gravitation 1-16, Including the Original Transcriptions of Lectures 12-16 by Morinigo and Wagner, With Richard Feynman's Manuscript Notations, 1971. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 9]. A Group of Manuals and Mission Documents used by Stuart Roosa as a member of the Astronaut Support Crew. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [BYTE: The Small Systems Journal]. A collection of early foundational issues of Byte: The Small Systems Journal, with rare hardcover editions. $5,000 to $8,000.
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Inundation papyrus. P.Michael 4, the ‘Inundation papyrus’, a geographical account of the Nile near Canopus, in Greek, remains of two columns from a manuscript scroll on papyrus, Egypt, second century CE. £12,000-18,000
Forum, July 16: Book of Hours, use of Sarum, manuscript on vellum, 6 full-page miniatures, with famous Middle English inscriptions, Southern Netherlands for the English market, [c.1430]. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Qu'ran, Arabic manuscript on burnished, stencilled, and gold-flecked paper, 447ff., Sultanate Gujarat, Ahmadabad, [after 1411 but no later than 1442]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Turner (William). A New boke of the natures and properties of all wines that are commonly vsed here in England, rare first edition of the first English book on wine, By William Seres, 1568. £20,000-£30,000
Forum, July 16: Spenser (Edmund). The Faerie Queene. first edition, Printed [by John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Shakespeare (William). The Comedie of Errors, extracted from the first folio, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1953. £40,000-60,000
Forum, July 16: d'Agoty (Jacques-Fabien Gautier). Anatomie de la Tête, first edition, Paris, chez le Sieur Gautier, 1748. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 16: Martial Arts.- Lee (Bruce). 'Praying Mantis style' Kung Fu book, containing numerous annotations, diagrams and graphs in Bruce Lee's hand, c. 1960. £50,000-70,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Warre (Capt. Henry James). Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, rare hand-coloured issue, 1848. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Norie (John William). The Marine Atlas, or Seaman's Complete Pilot for all the principal places in the known world..., 1826. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Mao Tse-tung.- Kim Il-sung.-[Note book for visitors from China to Korea], signed by Mao and Kim, [Beijing, 1954]. £10,000-15,000
