Bill Reese, who passed away in 2018, was both a rare book dealer and a collector of Americana, other books, prints, and art. It was a great privilege for me to be his client for a decade. In 2002, Bill Reese became the very first member of Americana Exchange (now RareBookHub). In 2022 his exceptional personal collection will be sold at Christie's and it will be a monumental event.
The collection, acquired over decades, will be dispersed in a matter of days and hours: his fourteen thousand days in the field, converted into "May I have an opening bid? On the left, yes in the back and...
What Sotheby's said would be one of the great library sales of recent years has been called off, and for the noblest of reasons. The sale was of the Honresfield Library, one of the greatest British...
It’s a fantasy we all have: Let’s open a really good old style bookstore. We’ll buy an antique building in a sleepy little town on the outskirts of some major metro area and hope that with a lot of...
We have a couple of stories of overdue library books this month. These are not typical overdue books, but ones dating back to the first half of the twentieth century. Such books rarely ever make a ...
Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books [ABAA] has recently moved offices from San Francisco to bucolic Connecticut where the firm will continue to develop its web presence, while issuing occasional virtua...
Books, manuscript, maps, and ephemera take you only so far. It’s possible to disappear into a great story but it’s close to shocking to consider you can personally acquire objects mentioned, pictu...
Style defines the man, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon once said—it also defines the woman, of course; but it was less frequently underlined in the 18th century. That’s probably one of the reasons ...
Every book town has the bookstore. The singular institution run by a bookseller with decades of experience. You need to prepare yourself for such places. Fortify yourself to sustain your focus for ...
Some disturbing news has come out of Hungary recently of concern to those who support freedom of ideas in books. Hungary might not seem an important place on the world stage, but as those cognizant...
Donald Heald, the New York rare book dealer, had been watching the emergence of auctions over the past decade as an alternative to selling at set prices and concluded the market was increasingly in...
Records were set at Freeman's auction in anticipation of July 4 when a copy of the Declaration of Independence sold for over $4 million. According to Freeman's, that was the highest aucrion price e...
A few months ago Helen R. Kahn sold her stock of rare books, maps and manuscripts to Patrick McGahern Books. The news arrived in an email mentioning that the Kahn stock is now offered by the McGah...
Another month, another collectible card setting record prices. However, this one is nowhere even near the price of other cards we have seen. It's not the $5 million+ spent on a Babe Ruth or Mickey ...
This month we review four new bookseller catalogues. Forest Books has a miscellany that seems to cover every imaginable subject. Stuart Lutz Historic Documents has many manuscripts and autographs o...
Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000
Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-1695) - Fables Choisies. Parigi: Claude Barbin, 1668. €7.000-€10.000
Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Gros & Delettrez Travel: Books & Cartography 6 February 2025
![The personal collection of William [Bill] S. Reese is to be sold by Christie's beginning in May, 2022](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticleImages/336cf07e-e435-40b7-9e59-e9bd411a6b75.)
![<b>Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26:</b> ALDROVANDI, Ulisse (1522-1605) - [Opera omnia]. Bologna: Bellagamba, Benacci, Bonomi, Tebaldini, Ferroni, 1599-1668. €22.000-€28.000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/ddd978f5-ea9c-4404-8155-8e612179abe3.jpg "<b>Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26:</b> ALDROVANDI, Ulisse (1522-1605) - [Opera omnia]. Bologna: Bellagamba, Benacci, Bonomi, Tebaldini, Ferroni, 1599-1668. €22.000-€28.000")
![<b>Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26:</b> [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/2fbc1d56-53ad-48b8-8c94-a111e061c2fd.jpg "<b>Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26:</b> [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000")
![<b>Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26:</b> MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/c5b01092-a400-4126-ab47-b7d055fc617e.jpg "<b>Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26:</b> MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000")
![<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> ORTELIUS (Abraham). Typus Orbis Terrarum. [Antwerp, 1587]](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/0dd64b06-3c59-497a-9245-72572653571f.jpg "<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> ORTELIUS (Abraham). Typus Orbis Terrarum. [Antwerp, 1587]")
![<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> BRION DE LA TOUR (Louis). Atlas Monde. Paris, Desnos ou Jaillot, [1783 - An XIII-1799].](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/7e2d362e-ccb6-4f55-a26b-e32874bcf0d6.jpg "<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> BRION DE LA TOUR (Louis). Atlas Monde. Paris, Desnos ou Jaillot, [1783 - An XIII-1799].")
![<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> VISSCHER (Nicolas Joannes). Theatrum praecipuarum urbium [...]](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/b1737c69-1907-4891-9afb-13991e11b1e0.jpg "<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> VISSCHER (Nicolas Joannes). Theatrum praecipuarum urbium [...]")
![<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> JOUTEL (Henri). Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Sale […]](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/c6a80758-db5f-415c-be49-6bf1ecfd00c0.jpg "<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> JOUTEL (Henri). Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Sale […]")
![<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> NOLIN (Jean-Baptiste) ; CORONELLI (Vincenzo). L'Amérique septentrionale, ou, la partie septentrionale des Indes Occidentales […]](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/cfba1df7-f754-4f5c-98a1-387a6451b222.jpg "<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> NOLIN (Jean-Baptiste) ; CORONELLI (Vincenzo). L'Amérique septentrionale, ou, la partie septentrionale des Indes Occidentales […]")
![<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> [Caroline du Sud]. A large draft of South Carolina from Cape Roman to Port Royal.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/52d7669f-b03e-404c-bec9-a5f4ef5c25aa.jpg "<b>Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6:</b> [Caroline du Sud]. A large draft of South Carolina from Cape Roman to Port Royal.")
