MORE THAN A YEAR AGO, I was contacted by a collector in Rhode Island. (He is now a member of the Rare Book Hub community of book specialists.) The collector had acquired from a used bookdealer in Pennsylvania a tantalizing document: a hefty, anonymous manuscript (quarto format), mostly in French, in a deluxe gold-tooled binding, with marble endpapers, high-quality watermarked paper, and valuably dated on the title-leaf “1691”. Overall condition fair, with damage to the boards and hinges; binding, strong and stable; watermarked paper with some water damage, but high-quality writing paper. Ov...
We live in a world increasingly dominated by databases and cell phones. Prices, for better or worse, now move in real time, and both buyers and sellers benefit from awareness. Rare books, manuscrip...
News of a massive theft from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh has been revealed. The theft was originally discovered in April of 2017, though detailed information has only recently come out. A bo...
Booksellers and collectors aren't known for being terrorists, but new regulations that may be adopted by the European Union to stop terrorists may do more to interfere with book collecting than ter...
The New York Antiquarian Book Fairs have come and gone, delivering large crowds and excellent results to the more than three hundred exhibitors who participated in at least one of the three fairs:
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There’s probably nothing to be done about it but the timing of the New York ABAA Fair in March, a concession to business and financial realities, is simply not as good as almost any April dates. A...
Rare books hit the news wires in an unflattering way last month. Credit Suisse, the major banking and financial institution headquartered in Zurich, released its annual Yearbook. They spoke of inve...
Many of you have been members of Rare Book Hub for years now, and over that time, you have surely witnessed the site change and evolve. But we are certainly not the only business in the industry in...
Elvin Montgomery has been both an educator, dealer and appraiser for more than three decades and he increasingly has adjusted his focus as Black Americana, his category, has emerged from the shadow...
Pensacola. King Queen Books has begun their going out of business sale. Long an active used and rare book dealer in west Florida, the surviving wife and partner of James Servies, Lana, is closi...
Welcome on board the Faucon Anglois (or English Falcon), one of the six vessels led by Captain Jean-Baptiste de Gennes in 1695. You are about to embark on a three-year expedition that will take you...
Many of our readers have been enjoying and learning from the essays written by our French correspondent, Thibault Ehrengardt. Enhrengardt writes of both events current in the book world and reviews...
Since I've been handling books and old paper for over 40 years without sneezing or blowing my nose a thousand times a day, I wonder why I have become sensitive to dust and other airborne pollutants...
The common wisdom is that law books are long and boring plain texts. I don't know whether this exhibit will fix the long and boring part of that reputation, but it will make you reconsider the assu...
This month we review 11 new bookseller catalogues. Travels and voyages are the subject of recent collections from J. F. Letenneur Rare Books and the William Reese Company. If you want to take one o...
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000
Forum Auctions Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026 25 March 2026
Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- Andrews (H.C.) Coloured Engravings of Heaths, 4 vol. in 2, first edition, [1710,--94]-1802-1809-[1830]. £10,000 - £15,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Butterflies.- Cramer (Pierre) and Caspar Stoll. De Uitlandsche Kapellen voorkomende in de drie Waereld-Deelen…,, 5 vol., Amsterdam & Utrecht, 1779-91. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Voyages.- Darwin (Charles) and others. Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, 3 vol. in 4, including Appendix to vol.2, first edition, 1839. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Butterflies.- de Graaf (Willem Diederik Vincent). [Inlandsche Kapellen in beeld], 170 fine original watercolours, [Enkhuizen], [1800-40]. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum Auctions Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026 25 March 2026
Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Dresser (Henry Eeles). A History of the Birds of Europe, 9 vol., including supplement, first edition, by the author, 1871-96. £6,000 - £8,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Zoology.- Felines.- Elliot (Daniel Giraud). A Monograph of the Felidæ or Family of the Cats, first edition, for the Subscribers, by the Author, [1878]-1883. £25,000 - £30,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Frisch (Johann Leonard). Vorstellung der Vögel Deutschlandes, 2 vol., first edition, Berlin, Friedr. Wilhelm Birnsteil, [1736]-1763. £40,000 - £60,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Gould (John). The Birds of Great Britain, 5 vol., first edition, by the author, 1862-1873. £30,000 - £40,000.
Forum Auctions Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026 25 March 2026
Forum, Mar. 25: Pomology.- France.- Poiteau (A.) Pomologie Française. Recueil des Plus Beaux Fruits cultivés en France, 4 vol., Paris, 1846. £30,000 - £40,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- [Robin (Jean)]. Histoire des Plantes, nouvellement trouvées en l'Isle Virgine…,, 1620; with Geoffrey Linocier L'Histoire des plantes, second edition, 1619-20. £3,000 - £4,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Asia.- Japan.- Siebold (P.F. von). Nippon. Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan, 7 parts in 6 vol., first edition, Leyden, [1832]-1852. £35,000 - £45,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Asia.- Valentijn (Francois). Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën..., 5 vol. in 8, first edition, Dordrecht [&] Amsterdam, 1724-26. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- Australia.- Redouté (P.J.).- Ventenat (Étienne Pierre). Jardin de la Malmaison, 2 vol.,, Paris, 1803-04[-05]. £30,000 - £40,000.
