Sold! Auctions Review

Male novelists are present in The Zamorano 80 in about the same numbers as female writers in general are found there. On the whole such male writers also generally held steady, although there were a few surprises. No such surprise is greater than lot 17, Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, estimated at $6000-12,000, basically the same estimate it had in the Clifford sale. In the earlier sale, this lot fetched $5,750. Here, for no apparent reason, a practically identical copy brought $23,000. If the room was expecting a run-up of Twain, those hopes were quickly dispelled with the next lot, a copy of his Roughing It, with an estimate of $750-1500. One of two Connecticut imprints in the sale, this copy went for $862; the Clifford copy, which was also BAL state A, went for $1840. Lot 26, with an estimate of $2500-5000, was a copy of Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast, which was knocked down for $3220. The Clifford copy, which contained a signed autograph letter, went for $2300. Bret Harte’s The Luck of Roaring Camp, here lot 40, estimated at $400-800, fetched $747.50, practically the same as the $863 it fetched at the Clifford sale. Frank Norris’ McTeague, here lot 58, with an estimate of $500-1000, also held steady with a hammer price of $575, as opposed to the $489 it fetched at the 1994 sale. Lot 71, with an estimate of $300-600, was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Silverado Squatters. At the Clifford sale it fetched $403, but here saw a rise to $862.50 for a somewhat better copy. Finally, the quasi-fictional, quasi-autobiographical book by Alonzo Delano, Old Block’s Sketch Book, here in lot 29, with an estimate of $3000-6000, fetched $9200, a considerable advance over the $2530 paid for the Clifford copy. Both copies were in wrappers that needed attention. Again, none of these books were so rare that Volkmann needed to acquire any of them at the Clifford sale.

Voyages of discovery to and exploration of California, as opposed to overland travel accounts or other such reports, form a significant portion of The Zamorano 80 and in some cases represent fairly expensive items. They also represent an unpredictable part of the collection for various reasons. Lot #4, F. W. Beechey’s Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific, had an estimate here of $3000-6000, basically the same estimate it had in the Clifford sale. This time, however, it sold for $3450, whereas in the Clifford sale it was the only lot in the entire sale to be bought in. Eugène Duflot de Mofras’ Exploration du territoire de l’Orégon, lot #30, estimated at $20,000-40,000, was bought in. In the Clifford sale, that lot sold for $18,400 on an estimate of $8000-12,000, although there does not seem to be any appreciable difference between the copies—certainly nothing that seems to explain the difference between $18,400 and $10,000. One assumes that the reserve must have been high in this case. No similar fate awaited Mofras’ confrere Auguste Duhaut-Chilly, whose Voyage autour du monde was lot #31, with an estimate of $10,000-20,000, and which sold for $13,800. That was quite an advance over the Clifford copy, which was knocked down for $9200. The one German exploration also advanced nicely over its Clifford price: lot #48, estimated at $7500-15,000, was Otto Kotzebue’s Entdeckungs-Reise in die Süd-See, which sold for $9200, whereas in the 1994 sale it fetched only $5175 for a better, superb, untrimmed, mostly unopened copy in original boards.

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