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...
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...
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...
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.” ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 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 ...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000
Books & Autographs Wednesday 25 March
Koller, Mar. 25: KAFKA, FRANZ, SCHRIFTSTELLER. Eigenh. Brief mit Unterschrift. Prag, 20. Oktober [19]15. CHF 30,000-40,000.
Koller, Mar. 25: EINSTEIN, ALBERT. Zwei eigenhändige Briefe an Ernst Gabor Straus, unterschrieben "A.E" bzw. "A. Einstein". [Princeton], [19]45. und [1950]. CHF 30,000-40,000.
Koller, Mar. 25: HORTENSE DE BEAUHARNAIS, MUTTER VON NAPOLEON III. Album aus ihrem Besitz mit 69 Aquarellen und Pinselzeichnungen in Sepia oder Grau… CHF 14,000-18,000.
Koller, Mar. 25: ZOOLOGIE - ORNITHOLOGIE - Seligmann, Johann Michael. Verzameling van uitlandsche en zeldzaame Vogelen. Teile 1-8 (von 9) in 2 Bänden. Mit 421 prächtig altkolorierten Kupfertafeln. CHF 14,000-20,000
Koller, Mar. 25: BOTANIK - Berlèse, Lorenzo und Johann Jakob Jung. Iconographie du genre camellia... 3 Bände. Mit 300 Farbstichtafeln "a la poupée.” Paris, [1839-]1841-1843. CHF 12,000-18,000.
