• Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - September - 2017 Issue

Western Americana from the William Reese Company

Western Americana.

The William Reese Company has released a new catalogue of Western Americana. When one thinks of the American West it is generally focused on the "taming" and settling of the area by Easterners, a process primarily taking place during the 19th to early 20th century. Most items in this catalogue come from this time period. There are soldiers and explorers, Indians, gunslingers and lawmen, settlers, travelers heading west, gold seekers flocking to Colorado and California, Mormons escaping persecution, and others who inhabited the frontier. There are numerous accounts of early Texas, the railroads, land sales, the Mexican War, and the unfortunate General Custer. This catalogue will take you back to a time almost mythical where the American character was forged through hardship and persistence. Here are few examples of what is available.

 

The Mexican War left the United States with vast new territories it had seized from Mexico - California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, parts of Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, and settled all dispute over ownership of Texas. Truth be told, it was why President Polk was so anxious to go to war with his southern neighbor - Manifest Destiny. He wanted more land. It still wasn't enough. Southerners believed it important for their economy that there also be a southern railroad route built to the Pacific. Unfortunately, the newly acquired territory was too mountainous for a direct route, but there was flatter land to the south. The U.S. offered Mexico $10 million for southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. It was known as the Gadsden Purchase, named for the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico who facilitated the deal. It is questionable whether Mexico, having just seen the U.S. seize vast amounts of its land, was all that happy, but might have felt it better to get some needed money for its land than to wait for its northern neighbor to simply take it. A major survey of the border was conducted after the war, but with the Gadsden Purchase, much of that work had to be thrown out, a new border surveyed. Item 52 is the Senate issue of William Emory's Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey... published 1857-1859. It covers the survey and lots more information about the natural history and topography of this newly acquired land. Item 52. Priced at $7,500.

 

The taking of California proved excellent timing as soon thereafter, easterners began to flock there to seek their fortunes. The Gold Rush was on. Item 16 is a letter from an unknown new resident to his cousin Miranda Combs in Mina, New York, written in December 1852. He had reached Mokelumne Hill, an area where gold was plentiful for the taking. It also became a rowdy place, attracting many undesirables, murders frequent for a while. The writer described the place, not without accuracy – "The hotels are almost entirely brothels & gaming halls; three-fourths of the women, unsightly and moral corpses." Still he made more money than he expected. The writer goes on to describe his neighbors - "Negroes, Chinamen, Spaniards, Chilians, French, Dutch, rowdies & desperadoes from the Atlantic States and all other hit-beds of crime." Even in 1852, Californians celebrated diversity. "Shooting and stabbing is a common occurrence," he continues, with a gallows not far from his camp. Evidently, Ms. Combs must have written him speculating that the rest of California must be the same as he concurs with the theory. At its peak, Mokelumne Hill had 15,000 residents. As of the last census, that number was 646. $1,100.

 

As gold in California started to run down, new discoveries were made in Colorado. Item 122 is a Hand-Book to Kansas Territory and the Rocky Mountains' Gold Region... by James Redpath and Richard J. Hinton, published in 1859. It is a Kansas guide rather than one for Colorado as Colorado had not yet been split off from Kansas in 1859. Redpath and Hinton were eastern journalists. Repath lived in Kansas from 1855-58. He was an ardent abolitionist and friend of John Brown, who was also in Kansas during the Bloody Kansas days, fighting for the abolition cause. Part of the reason for this book was to encourage more northern anti-slavery settlers to come to Kansas to put the balance of power on the abolition side. This guide discusses the gold discoveries, routes, and how to outfit oneself for finding gold. It contains a few important maps of the area. $15,000.

 

What would the West be without outlaws? Well here is a story of how it came to have to manage with one fewer. Item 62 is The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, the Noted Desperado of the Southwest, whose deeds of daring and blood made his name a terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico, a very rare book published in 1882. It is probably the most famous western outlaw book as well. The author was none other than the man who killed the gentleman Howes referred to as "America's most spectacular example of juvenile delinquency." Billy was a horse thief, cattle rustler, and petty criminal who occasionally found himself in situations where it appeared, to his point of view, necessary to kill someone. Billy was actually very loyal to those for whom he worked, and a friend to the poor and downtrodden, including Mexicans at the bottom of the social ladder. He despised the wealthy who took advantage of these people, with whom Billy could relate. Nevertheless, he was a criminal, and was convicted of murder, waiting to be hanged, when he escaped from jail, killing two more in the process. Finally, Billy met his end in a dark bedroom, unaware that the author of this book, Sheriff Pat Garrett, had entered the room. He probably didn't know what was happening when Garrett shot him. While William Bonney had achieved some notoriety, particularly in New Mexico, he likely would have soon faded from memory were it not for this book. Garrett had good reason to build Bonney's reputation into a legend. It made his reputation, as the man who brought down Billy the Kid, that much bigger too. Nonetheless, Garrett proved to be an ornery man, not popular, and Billy ended up with the greater reputation of the two. Garrett himself would be assassinated a number of years later, apparently over a land dispute. $35,000.

 

Item 117 is a humorous tale of a bird hunting trip through the marshes, bramble, and various challenges of South Texas, published in 1894, A Man from Corpus Christi or the Adventures of Two Bird Hunters and a Dog in the Texas Bogs. The author, A. C. Peirce, was a Boston physician. His partner and guide, the colorful Texas character John Priour, the dog Absalom ("the true hero of the story."). They traveled the Texas coast from Corpus Christi to Victoria to Galveston. It is an area teeming with bird life, lots of large seabirds, including the winter nesting ground for the rarest of American birds, the whooping crane. $850.

 

The William Reese Company may be reached at 203-789-8081 or amorder@reeseco.com. Their website is www.williamreesecompany.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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