Rare Book Hub is heavy on old books and paper so it’s reasonable to spend an hour and a half watching a movie on the subject: The Booksellers directed by D. W. Young. It was released in September 2019, just a nano second ago in the world of old books. Nope, I hadn’t been aware but thoroughly enjoyed it recently.
It’s 98 minutes of absorbing dialogue making the case that dealers are the gatekeepers to the great books. So it has been for 3 centuries.
Dealers and librarians have long deserved praise for their efforts to organize and structure the rare book field. Joseph Sabin was...
Theft of books and manuscripts has long been an intractable problem for library and other institutional collections. The presence now of a stolen book database makes it harder for thieves to sell t...
About eight years ago we joined one of the few bookstore cooperatives in the United States. It was a great choice and we have liked it very much for all the time we were there. But now, after thirt...
Donald Heald Auctions has announced auctions have been added to the Donald A. Heald Rare Book’s marketing fix. The inaugural event has been posted to Live Auctioneers as a timed auction ending Sat...
Half a century ago, Abbie Hoffman wrote a book entitled Steal This Book. That may have been tongue-in-cheek, but Hoffman wouldn't have minded. He was a political activist, a founder of the Yippies,...
Gabriel Constantine, an Ulster County, New York native, had an interest in antiques and old paper and took a job with JMW Auctions in Kingston when he was 18, working as jack-of-all-trades, lumping...
“On April 1st, 1702, I sailed from Chef de Bois, two miles away from La Rochelle, for Guinea on board a vessel of the King loaded with 50 guns.” That’s the perfect travel book incipit—straight to t...
In 2016, a baseball card sold for the astonishing record price of $3.12 million. This wasn't any sports card. It was the Holy Grail of all cards, the circa 1909 Sweet Caporal Cigarettes Honus Wagne...
Though we’ve mentioned Exlibris before in this space, it can’t hurt to reiterate that it is one of the most informative and challenging of the many listservs in the world of better books. The membe...
There is a side effect of collecting in the age of the Internet that has been well-documented by my father: with so much material accessible, collectors are often compelled to drill down into very ...
It’s Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art Database. Yes, there is Abe and Biblio for books and art, many of which are absolute steals but now there is a database exclusively of steals. And how many cou...
Unwittingly of late, books have found themselves thrown into the controversy of so-called “cancel culture.” This is where things once generally accepted have been suppressed because they no longer ...
Books have been used for the safekeeping of things other than knowledge for centuries. Specifically, we are talking about the book safe. A book safe is a safe that is made to look like a book. Insi...
This month we review five new booksellers' catalogues. David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books has a new selection of rare Americana. Zephyr Used Rare Books focuses on architecture shaping our worl...
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today These are the Times that Try Men's Souls. Paine, Thomas. Sold for US$152,900.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today The First Printed Work on Political Economy. Sold for US$127,000.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Signed Lincoln Photograph with Son Tad. Sold for US$76,700.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today First Expanded Edition of Common Sense. Paine, Thomas. Sold for US$76,700.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Presentation Copy of Hemmingway's First Book. Sold for US$70,350.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today St. John's Gospel on Vellum, A Fragment in Greek, 5th Century. Sold for US$70,350.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Only A Handful of Surviving Copies. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Sold for US$58,880.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today A Pivotal Step in Einstein's Development of General Relativity. Sold for US$51,200.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today A Fine Jewelled Binding Signed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Sold for US$56,320.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Joyce's Annotated Typescript Draft for Finnegan's Wake. Sold for US$48,640.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today One of 30 Pre-Publication Copies, Inscribed by Hemingway to Spencer Tracy, Who Played "The Old Man". Sold for US$83,050.
Sotheby’s Year in Review
Sotheby’s Year in Review: A Rare Hebrew Bible with Micrographic Masorah. Sold: 1,514,000 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: "The Freedman's Primer.” Sold: 241,300 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Smith, William. "The Map that Changed the World." Sold: 139,700 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Psalter, C13th. Illuminated Psalter. Sold: 330,200 GBP
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Lincoln, Abraham. The abolition of slavery. Sold: 13,697,500 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Vergilius. Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1501. Sold: 1,041,400 USD
