• Koller Auctions
    Books & Autographs
    20 March 2024
    Koller, Mar. 20: DADA - Der Zeltweg. Redaktion: Flake, Serner, Tzara. Zürich, 1919. CHF 5,000 – 8,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Jespers, Floris - Peeters, Jan. Kinderlust. Antwerpen, J. F. Bogaerts & R. R. Dodson, [1923]. CHF 2,000 – 3,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: FARBENLEHRE - Chevreul, M. E. De la Loi du contraste simultané des couleurs et de l'assortiment des objets colorés. Paris, 1839. CHF 4,000 – 5,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: BOTANIK - Schrank, Franz de Paula von. Flora Monacensis, seu plantae sponte circa Monachium nascentes. München, 1811-1818. CHF 20,000 – 30,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: French Bible manuscript. Latin manuscript on parchment. With 81 illuminated, ornamental and figurative initials. Paris, c. 1250. CHF 90,000 – 120,000
    Koller Auctions
    Books & Autographs
    20 March 2024
    Koller, Mar. 20: Gradual for the use of a Dominican convent. Latin manuscript on parchment, with Flemish rubrics in black and red. Mecheln (?), c. 1520. CHF 25,000 – 40,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Calendar. French manuscript on parchment. With 12 large colored thorn leaf initials on a gold background. Paris, c. 1380/1390. CHF 40,000 – 60,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Freud, Sigmund. Collection of 23 handwritten letters to Alphonse Maeder in Zurich. In addition to 4 letter drafts from Maeder to Freud. 2 February 1910 - 21 September 1913. CHF 50,000 – 80,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Jung, Carl Gustav. Collection of 26 autograph and 3 typescript letters and a postcard to Alphonse Maeder. 1911-1918. CHF 20,000 – 30,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Nietzsche, Friedrich, philosopher. Handwritten letter signed to Richard Wagner. Basel, September 27, 1876. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Rare Book Monthly Articles - June - 2020 Issue

Madeline Faith Kripke: 1943-2020: An American Original

Madeline, the noted dictionary collector and eccentric par supreme, slipped away April 25th, caught between aging and Coronavirus.  Nothing less than two disasters would slow her down.  When passed away she was yet in mid-flight, her life and career on a trajectory to create a collection and database of the history of the ever transitioning meaning of words.  For decades she purchased, one by one, dictionaries in many languages with every imaginable focus, the more the obscure and peculiar the better.    As the “other child” of an astonishingly brilliant family, the sun shone most brightl...

Necessity is the Mother of Invention: ABAA Virtual Book Fairs

The Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America [ABAA] is introducing its first Virtual Book Fair June 4-7 in response to a desire to reconnect within the community.  These new events on the In...

Another Valuable Ancient Document Obtained Under Shady Circumstances Likely Heading from the U. S. Back to Iraq

On May 18, the U. S. Department of Justice filed suit to return a cuneiform tablet apparently worth well over $1 million to authorities in Iraq, from which it was looted, most likely early in this ...

Books: Maybe We Aren't Reading Them, But They Still Make Great Props

Books have long held a position of high esteem in our households, likely as far back as Gutenberg. You probably have a bookcase containing every book you have ever owned. Why? Do you keep a collect...

Welcome Back to the Bookstores

Hello all.  Here we are in sunny California in June where it is, at this writing, already way too hot!  Our co-operative bookstore is opening slowly again after a two-month plus closure.  As with a...

Christies is announcing its inaugural various-owner Books & Manuscripts Sale Online

Once upon a time auction house savants labored somewhere between secrecy and privacy while making policy and fortunes for buyers and sellers.  Then BINGO, in response and reaction to risk, danger, ...

Britain's ABA Launches First Virtual Fair

Britain's Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) has launched its first virtual book fair, this year's edition of Firsts London. The virtual or online book fair has become the norm where fairs h...

Truisms of the Book Business

I have been in the used/rare book business for twenty years. Below are some of the things I have learned.   If someone is trying to sell you books and it appears they are going to be difficult, i...

Selections from the Library of Lorenzo H. Zambrano: Online Auction at Christie’s, 2-18 June 2020

Lorenzo H. Zambrano (1944-2014) was one of Mexico's leading businessmen, philanthropists, and collectors. As Chief Executive of Cemex from 1985 to 2014, he transformed the Mexican cement company fr...

The Dangerous Liaisons of Ninon de Lenclos

Lettres de Ninon de Lenclos au Marquis de Sévigné (Amsterdam, 1750) is not a very expensive book—a very nice copy is worth around $200. But it is one of those crucial “in-between” books that bookse...

Binging on Bibliography

Back in March at the beginning of the global pandemic lockdown it was Katy-Bar-the-Door in Hawaii. Along with thousands of others I went into self-isolation. With my 77th birthday right around the ...

A Home With A Spectacular Library Is Offered For Sale

If you've always dreamed of a home with a magnificent library, the home of your dreams is now on the market. Is Detroit okay? Actually, it is not in Detroit proper but the toney suburb of Grosse Po...

Revising Appraisals due to the Coronavirus

A  recent inquiry from a dealer-appraiser raised a pertinent question; with significant changes in the world over the past year, have rare book, manuscript, and map appraisals issued in the mid-201...

How and When Can Libraries Reopen?

Almost, if not all libraries have closed down because of the pandemic. The decision on one level may have been tough, but the reality is there was no choice. Safety had to come first. The American ...

New York, New York: As a place and a feeling

An intensely focused collection of unusual and rare engravings and lithographs of New York, the property of the Downtown Club near Wall Street, were sold at Arader Galleries on Sunday April 25th an...

Rose City Book & Paper Fair Is Going Virtual This Year

The Cascade Booksellers Association will be holding their annual Rose City Book Paper Fair again in June, but this year's edition will be unlike any before. The western states booksellers organiza...

How about spending $300 to save $10,000

Collectors early on too often follow the well-trod path from enthusiasm to disaster after they learn that market valuation is different than asking prices.  For the new collector this is terribly i...

Shapero Rare Books Parent Company Projects Loss for the Year

There is a ton of anecdotal information leading one to believe this is not an easy time for booksellers. There are comments from dealers themselves, along with the fact that virtually every busines...

Two New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

The dearth of new printed catalogues being published in the books and paper field continues. It may not go away until the disruption of normal life created by the coronavirus goes away too. This mo...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.

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