Worlds apart: books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera
Kenneth Rendell, now 80, a life-long collector-dealer in collectibles, has written an immensely interesting account of his life in our field. This book, his ninth, is being released October 3rd, 2023 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon and elsewhere.
When kids find their imaginations soaring about old books and paper, they inevitably daydream about discovering gems and subsequently share their prizes with luminaries, collectors and institutions. In the human imagination, possibilities live. Children have long been drawn into the m...
Where does the information you get from artificial intelligence (AI) sources like ChatGPT come from? It comes from a lot places, including the reams of data on the internet, but a significant sourc...
The city of Paris will welcome the Olympic games in 2024. As the opening ceremony on the Seine River approaches, the officials plan to remove the emblematic booksellers’ wooden boxes from the pictu...
I am grateful to Bruce McKinney for providing access to this forum to give his subscribers a little bit of information about Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.
To the extent you re...
Some people collect books based on subjects or time periods. Others collect more on the basis of quality. And then, there are people who collect in quantity, a type of collecting that generally req...
It has been an extraordinary privilege to play a part in the growth and development of the market for collectible paper over these past 21 years. A field that has been resolutely transitioning ove...
A 46-page mock up of children’s classic Madeline by artist-illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans created ca. 1938-39 brought $190,500 (including the buyer’s premium) in a July auction at Sotheby’s, substant...
10,000 books and other items from theLibrary of the late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey in Essex will be auctioned by Dominic Winter Auctioneers of Cirencester in two sales in September 2023 a...
Professor, astronomer, sleuth and author Owen Gingerich died earlier this year at the age of 93. Gingerich will long be remembered for his obsessive pursuit of knowledge about one particular book, ...
Old World Auctions’ September sale features several items that have never before been offered at auction. The online auction runs through 10 p.m. Eastern on September 13.
The first of these rare i...
Sometime between 1985 and 1988, a copy of the most important document of the New World disappeared from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Marciana or St. Mark's National Library) in Venice, Italy....
We have some good news and some bad news. Fake books have evidently become quite popular today, sufficiently so that several companies now are making and selling them. This fits in with the trend o...
I’m one of the legion of Robert Caro fans. Caro, now 87, is the former Newsday reporter, who made a lifetime project writing about the acquisition and perpetuation of power using biographies of Rob...
New York—The start of the fall 2023 season at Swann Galleries brings two new specialists for the house: Corey Serrant joins Swann as the associate director of LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture History,...
This website is all about printed paper, yet we rarely discuss the most valuable printed paper of all – currency. It is the only type of paper with a stated value. If you were asked to name an inge...
For September we review three new booksellers catalogues. Maggs Bros. Ltd. features voyages travel, and some more too. Michael D. Heaston Rare Books and Manuscripts offers a selection of Americana...
Sotheby’s Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana 27 January 2026
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: An extraordinary pair of books from George Washington’s field library, marking the conjunction of Robert Rogers, George Washington, and Henry Knox. $1,200,000 to $1,800,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: An extraordinary letter marking the conjunction of George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Benjamin Franklin. $1,000,000 to $1,500,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: Virginia House of Delegates. The genesis of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. $350,000 to $500,000.
Sotheby’s Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana 27 January 2026
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: (Gettysburg). “Genl. Doubleday has taken charge of the battle”: Autograph witness to the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, illustrated by fourteen maps and plans. $200,000 to $300,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: President Lincoln thanks a schoolboy on behalf of "all the children of the nation for his efforts to ensure "that this war shall be successful, and the Union be maintained and perpetuated." $200,000 to $300,000.
Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27:</b> [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/9d2762bc-9f26-47ef-96de-1c28070e19f6.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27:</b> [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.")