Rare Book Monthly Articles - January - 2025 Issue

Introducing Categories: Maps, our first!

Introducing Categories: Maps, our first!

From the beginning of the printed word, records about them have been kept. Their form soon coalesced into a common understanding that title, author, date and place published identifies most printings.  Since then, not much has changed, until now.   Until now, search logic was used to penetrate catalogues and databases with three or more of these:                   By author name             By title             By subject             And by date   And these identifiers still work fine. However, we’re in the earliest moments when collectible paper will dominate the field.  Searchi...

High Prices Highlight the 2024 Rare Book Hub Top 500 Prices Paid at Auction for Books and Related Collectibles

High Prices Highlight the 2024 Rare Book Hub Top 500 Prices Paid at Auction for Books and Related Collectibles

Another year has come to a close, which means it's time to look back at the year just past with the annual Rare Book Hub Top 500 highest prices paid at auction for books and related collectibles. I...

Trending Now - Books

Trending Now - Books

The reports of books' death have been greatly exaggerated. This is no doubt a difficult time for many booksellers, particularly smaller ones and those in the business of selling high-priced classic...

And the Word of the Year Is...

And the Word of the Year Is...

The Oxford University Press has named its Word of the Year. For not the first time, The Word of the Year is not a word, its a short phrase, a combination of two words. Those words are “brain rot.” ...

Rare Book Hub: New Services and New Rates

Our Rates for 2025-26   Rare Book Hub’s subscription prices go up on January 1st every two years. This is it.   Here is what we are providing:   Access to our Rare Book Transaction History ...

PI(E) Day Baking & Culinary Historian Contest March 14, 2025

PI(E) Day Baking & Culinary Historian Contest March 14, 2025

The team planning for Pi(e) Day 2025, invites book people everywhere to combine books and baking by joining Petite Pi(e) Day on March 14, 2025.  For the seventh year running The Great Library Pie ...

Magra, Good for Nothing...Or the Apocryphal Relation of Cook’s First Voyage

Magra, Good for Nothing...Or the Apocryphal Relation of Cook’s First Voyage

According to Captain Cook, midshipman James Magra was “good for nothing”, but Magra did at least one good thing: he published an apocryphal relation of Cook’s first voyage. Translated into French i...

January 1 is Public Domain Day

January 1 is Public Domain Day

January 1 is an important holiday. No, I'm not talking about New Year's Day. There is another holiday that happens on the same day – Public Domain Day. This the day on which works whose copyrights ...

Newly Discovered Manuscript Declaration of Independence to Be Auctioned

Newly Discovered Manuscript Declaration of Independence to Be Auctioned

For the first time ever, a manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence written in the hand of a key participant in the nation’s founding is set to appear at auction. This extraordinary docum...

Booksellers Take on Amazon with a Little Help from their Friends

Booksellers Take on Amazon with a Little Help from their Friends

There's a battle going on in France between booksellers and Amazon. An independent party, the government, may again be called on to render a verdict, though they are not nonpartisan. You know who t...

Case Auctions: A Potpourri January 25-26

Case Auctions: A Potpourri January 25-26

Case Auctions of Knoxville, Tennessee has prepared a fascinating auction catalogue in conjunction with their 2025 Winter Art Antiques Sale that occurs January 25-26. For those who have a yen to br...

Multiple Travel, Research, and Residence Grants offered by Libraries

Multiple Travel, Research, and Residence Grants offered by Libraries

Artist-in-Residence and Research Fellowship at University of Miami’s Kislak Collection (Deadline Jan. 24, 2025) The University of Miami's Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Early Americas, Exploratio...

HighBids.com: Two Chances to add to your Collections

Hi-BidsWin.com is offering Print History Tools of the Trade   As January arrives, so too two auctions at HighBidsWin.com will soon be gaveled down.   They are:   Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazi...

Shapero Rare Books' to End Listing on London Stock Exchange

Shapero Rare Books' to End Listing on London Stock Exchange

Scholium Group, the parent of Shapero Rare Books (and little other business besides Shapero Modern Prints), will be delisting its stock from the London Stock Exchange on January 6. Ten years ago, S...

The Rare Book Hub Monthly: 2024 in Review

The Rare Book Hub Monthly: 2024 in Review

Whew, what a year! While you were sweating inflation, the cost of living and the tight election we were posting monthly articles from the world of rare books including auctions, dealers, social med...

Six New Catalogues Reviewed for January

Six New Catalogues Reviewed for January

This month we review six new catalogues from six booksellers. Rulon-Miller Books features titles from various collector and bookseller collections they recently obtained. Kelmscott Bookshop focuses...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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.
  • ALDE, Mar. 11: AUGUSTIN (Saint). De civitate Dei. Rome, Konrad Sweynheym et Arnold Pannartz, 1470. €20,000 - €30,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: [REGNART (LE LIVRE DE)]. [Le] Docteur en malice, maistre Regnard, demonstrant les ruzes et cautelles qu'il use envers les personnes… Rouen, 1550. €20,000 - €30,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: TRITHÈME (JEAN). Polygraphie et universelle escriture cabalistique. Paris, [Benoît Prévost pour] Jacques Kerver, 1561. €8,000 - €10,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: CAUS (SALOMON DE). La Perspective, avec la raison des ombres et des miroirs. Londres, John Norton, 1612.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: NICERON (JEAN-FRANÇOIS). La Perspective curieuse ou magie artificielle des effets merveilleux de l'optique. Paris, Pierre Billaine, 1638. €6,000 - €8,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: VONTET (JACQUES). L’Art de trancher la viande et toute sorte de fruits… S.l.n.d. [probablement Lyon, vers 1647]. €20,000 - €30,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: HUGO (VICTOR). [Paysage spectral avec une église], [vers 1837]. €20,000 - €30,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: [HERVEY DE SAINT-DENYS (LÉON D')]. Les Rêves et les Moyens de les diriger. Observations pratiques. Paris, Amyot, 1867. €3,000 - €4,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: GACHET (PAUL-FERDINAND). Les Chats de Gachet (Manuscrit). S.d. [avant mai 1873]. €6,000 - €8,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: [REDON (ODILON)]. PICARD (EDMOND). Le Juré. Monodrame en cinq actes… Bruxelles, Mme veuve Monnom, 1887. €7,000 - €9,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: [TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (HENRI DE) ET HENRI-GABRIEL IBELS]. MONTORGUEIL (GEORGES). Le Café-concert. Paris, [1893]. €4,000 - €5,000.
    ALDE, Mar. 11: [TERRY (EMILIO)]. Projet de fontaine. Dessin original au stylo et à l'encre noire. 1938. €2,000 - €3,000.

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