Rare Book Monthly Articles - December - 2019 Issue

Site Changes Coming on Rare Book Hub:  the only constant is change.

Site Changes Coming on Rare Book Hub: the only constant is change.

For Americana Exchange and more recently its successor Rare Book Hub change has always been part of the equation.  Change online is necessary as the structure of the Internet evolves, speeds increase, and underlying assumptions about how websites function and are used, change.  Early on the focus was on duplicating print services electronically. The idea was to create a great portable library that researchers could access at their desks.  For those who tried it in 2002, it worked but most did not need it because the post-World War II structure of the rare book business was still, if waverin...

A Complex Year for collectors, libraries and dealers

A Complex Year for collectors, libraries and dealers

The world is in flux.  Books have a history but do they have a future?  Let’s consider the perspectives.   Change has always been part of the human experience but rarely have the changes been so ...

Unique Charlotte Bronte Book Makes It Home after a 189-Year Journey

Unique Charlotte Bronte Book Makes It Home after a 189-Year Journey

A book by Charlotte Bronte is finally coming home, after passing through the hands of two criminals, 189 years after it was written. The home of Charlotte and her star-crossed sisters is now the Pa...

Books Are Disappearing from an Idaho Library, But It's No Theft

Books Are Disappearing from an Idaho Library, But It's No Theft

Books disappearing from library shelves is a longstanding problem that still plagues libraries despite all the security cameras and measures taken over the years. However, a strange case of disappe...

William H. Bonney Lives on

William H. Bonney Lives on

Billy the Kid was a bad guy who achieved immortality killing people back when killing people one at a time still made the news.  These days it takes 5 to make the papers on a busy day or occasional...

A Library Dies, Its Books A-Mouldering in Their Grave

A Library Dies, Its Books A-Mouldering in Their Grave

The sad story of the death of a library in Jackson, Mississippi, recently completed its final act. The library board has abandoned its interest in the building, its 34,000 books destroyed, and many...

Cartouche ou Le Vice Puni: First, Pirate and Best Editions...

Cartouche ou Le Vice Puni: First, Pirate and Best Editions...

Louis-Dominique Cartouche (1693-1721), the most famous French robber of the Ancien Régime, inspired many writers including Nicolas Racot de Grandval, who published Le Vice Puni, ou Cartouche (Anver...

Shapero Rare Books' Parent Reports a Return to Profitability

Shapero Rare Books' Parent Reports a Return to Profitability

Things are looking up for rare book seller Shapero Rare Books and its parent company. Shapero Rare Books is part of publicly traded company Scholium Group, which means it is required to provide aud...

Allom’s Chinese Empire Series Images Are Wide Ranging & Detailed

Allom’s Chinese Empire Series Images Are Wide Ranging & Detailed

Described as,”Arguably one of the most appealing pictorial books published during the mid-1800s, The Chinese Empire Illustrated, (known also as China, its scenery, architecture, social habits c. il...

Offering the Repugnant

Offering the Repugnant

Recently in Germany at auction house Hermann Historica in a sale of German Contemporary History, 842 lots including hundreds of Nazi items were sold.  For many the idea that such material is availa...

Annual Northampton Book and Book Arts Fair Held on December 6-7

Annual Northampton Book and Book Arts Fair Held on December 6-7

The annual Northampton Book and Book Arts Fair will be held on Friday, December 6, and Saturday, December 7 this year. Hours on Friday are 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Hours on Saturday are 10:00 a.m. - 4...

eCatalogues:  just in time for the holidays

eCatalogues: just in time for the holidays

As we enter this holiday season we want to remind our members and visitors of the cataloging trend now well underway, that is seeing the decline of the printed catalogue in favor of the eCatalogue ...

Fourteen New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Fourteen New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

For December we review 14 new bookseller catalogues. The Raab Collection celebrates 30 years in the field with a selection of important autograph material. Mark Funke Bookseller offers a spectacula...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
    Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
    Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
    Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
    Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
    Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
    Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
    Ketterer, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000

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