Rare Book Monthly Articles - June - 2019 Issue

Hold these Dates for New York in 2020

Hold these Dates for New York in 2020

Donald Heald, Chairman of the premier book fair in the world, the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, announced on 30 May that Sanford Smith and the ABAA have reached an agreement with the Park Avenue Armory to return to this coveted venue in 2020.  Set up for the fair, is scheduled for March 4th followed by the opening on Thursday March 5th then continuing through Sunday March 8th.  This fair, measured by attendance, is larger than the combined Boston, Oakland and Pasadena fairs combined.  In recent years total attendance in New York exceeded 10,000.   In 2016 the Armory was repurposed as a ...

The Amazing Discovery of the Bibliography of Christopher Columbus' Son

The Amazing Discovery of the Bibliography of Christopher Columbus' Son

The discovery of a long lost, presumed destroyed, almost 2,000-page manuscript may well be the greatest bibliographic find of this century. Its finding is somewhat on a parallel with Columbus' disc...

“Breaking Up is Hard to Do” Part II: Rant of the soon to be ex eBay Power Seller

“Breaking Up is Hard to Do” Part II: Rant of the soon to be ex eBay Power Seller

Back in April I used this space to rant about eBay and my 20 years of selling on their platform. I complained the introduction of a new “Good til Cancelled” (GTC) policy gave sellers even less cont...

Alexander Hamilton Letter, Stolen 80 Years Ago, Finally Located

Alexander Hamilton Letter, Stolen 80 Years Ago, Finally Located

A letter written by Alexander Hamilton to the Marquis de Lafayette, stolen years ago from the Massachusetts Archives, has been found. An action has been taken by the U.S. Department of Justice in M...

Book Fairs in London in June

Book Fairs in London in June

Book fairs everywhere have assumed a gathering importance as shops have closed around the world.  Experience has long shown that collectors and institutions will go great distances to find the obje...

June 26: The Library & Picture Collection of the late Martin Woolf Orskey at Dominic Winter Auctioneers

June 26: The Library & Picture Collection of the late Martin Woolf Orskey at Dominic Winter Auctioneers

Editor’s note: On June 26, 2019, Dominic Winter Auctioneers will be auctioning the Library Picture Collection of the late Martin Woolf Orskey. The sale features 440 lots arranged in chronological ...

University of South Carolina Receives a Gift of Over 180,000 Comics

University of South Carolina Receives a Gift of Over 180,000 Comics

Remember when your mother said you would never learn anything by reading comic books? The folks at the University of South Carolina don't. When they heard a collector from Ohio had an enormous coll...

June 12: Landmark works 'Summa de Arithmetica' and DNA's double-helix discovery at Christie's New York

June 12: Landmark works 'Summa de Arithmetica' and DNA's double-helix discovery at Christie's New York

Normally, a sale featuring multiple six figure estimates, including a signed prepublication of the DNA double-helix discovery, a letter by George Washington addressing the Whiskey Rebellion, and an...

West-Indian Apocalypse, “Year Minus 1.”

West-Indian Apocalypse, “Year Minus 1.”

Between 1788 and 1790, Stanislas de Wimpffen resided in the French West-Indian colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti). He failed to make a fortune, but he gave an intimate description of a corrupted soci...

Reconstructing History in Paint

Reconstructing History in Paint

At some point, for serious institutions and collectors the reimagining of the past becomes essential to understanding and explaining it.  Today’s assumptions are often, if not always, very differen...

Panorama of the Hudson River by Wade and Croome

Panorama of the Hudson River by Wade and Croome

Recently I was offered a second edition of Wade Croome’s Panorama of the Hudson River, printed in 1846.  I look to understand the evolving waterfront of the Hudson River during the 19th century an...

From a Carnegie Library to an Apple Store - a 21st Century Transformation

From a Carnegie Library to an Apple Store - a 21st Century Transformation

Electronic devices, digital reading and viewing have been eating away at the use of print books for a long time now. It is a trend that has bothered some book lovers and many educators for a simila...

Microsoft's eBook Store is Closing Its "Doors"

Microsoft's eBook Store is Closing Its "Doors"

We have heard so many times about booksellers closing their doors, often the victims of new technology. Who needs paper when electrons arrive instantaneously, the choices virtually unlimited? The m...

Scholium Group Reports "Difficult Environment" for Rare Books Trade

Scholium Group Reports "Difficult Environment" for Rare Books Trade

Scholium Group, parent of Shapero Rare Books, reported improved results for the half year ending March 31, 2019, versus the previous six-month period. It expects a small profit for the six months a...

Rose City Book Fair Set for June 14-15 in Portland, Oregon

Rose City Book Fair Set for June 14-15 in Portland, Oregon

If it's June in the Pacific Northwest, it is time once again for the Rose City Book Fair. This is an annual event in the Rose City, also known as Portland, Oregon. Over 60 booksellers will be exhib...

The Price of Imperfection is Going Up

The Price of Imperfection is Going Up

Honus Wagner, a well known baseball player in his lifetime, has achieved in death increasing notoriety in his afterlife.  True, in life he was good, even very good, played 21 seasons, won 8 batting...

Library Thief Has Statue in Her Honor Placed Outside Library

Library Thief Has Statue in Her Honor Placed Outside Library

How many people who steal books from a library are honored by having their statue erected outside of it? None immediately come to mind. Well, now there is one. Her name is Victoria Wood, and while ...

13 Catalogues Reviewed This Month

13 Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we review 13 new booksellers' catalogues. Librairie Clavreuil from France has a collection of authors' first books. Ursus Rare Books focuses on art theory and technique. Shapero Rare Boo...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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€
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: (Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie). Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece, 2 vols, 1st edition, 1782-1822. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Gentlemen's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, by Sylvanus Urban, 11 volumes. £700-1,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Shackleton (Ernest). The Heart of the Antarctic, 2 vols, 1st ed, presentation copy, 1909. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Drayton (Michael). Poly Olbion..., London: 1622. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Scheuchzer (Johann Jacob). Ouresiphoites Helveticus, 4 parts in 1, 2nd ed, 1723. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Roberts (Henry, after). Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ..., [1784]. £500-800
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Maffei (Giovanni), Indiarum orientalium Occidentaliumque Descriptio..., 1589. £1,200-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Ortelius (Abraham), Typus Orbis Terrarum, [1598]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Bible [English]. [The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New..., 1613]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Pierpont Morgan Collection. Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, 1904 & 1906. £2,000-3,000

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