At Christie's: The Nebenzahl Collection - Remnants of a Golden Age
- By Bruce McKinney
Ken and Jossy Nebenzahl at the first Streeter sale in 1966
The book business is a tough racket and the proof of this statement everywhere. Many people try their hands and most make some money. A few make a career of it, a very few make it to the top. Ken Nebenzahl is one of the few who has made it both as dealer and collector and continues to ride the high surf all the way into his eighties. The clock and responsible judgment lead him a year ago to plan his exit and retirement and he then entered into a contract with Christie’s to handle the dispersal of his and his wife Jossy’s personal collection of important atlases and high points from their remaining inventory. On April 10th, in New York, in what can only be described as a gaudy event, Christie’s will conduct an evening sale to send his material on to the next generation of collectors. Mr. N, at this for going on sixty years and a member of the Grolier for fifty-five, will labor on, his mind sharp but know that the dispersal has been handled properly. It turns out, as it should, that his love of and regard for family trumps his passion for the material.
His sale will almost certainly be the most important book and map sale of the year and may well rank among the very important sales of the decade. It will not be the largest, as measured by lots, but will include many exceptional examples, the type of which is rarely offered for sale. Mr. Nebenzahl, it turns out has acquired not only the exceptionally rare but often the exceptional copy. In this he shared a connoisseur’s perspective with another renowned bookman, H. P. Kraus and in this sale his judgment will be on clear display. Lest anyone think this means more of this level of material will magically soon appear, it’s most unlikely. The best examples of books and maps are beyond rare, something the elite and experienced understand. Inevitably this will be their sale and the opportunity to acquire material that performs differently from mainstream rarities in the years ahead. Great examples invariably do well, the exceptional with a great provenance even better.
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At Christie's: The Nebenzahl Collection - Remnants of a Golden Age
- By Bruce McKinney
Veracruz. Speculum coniugiorum. Mexico City January 1555
In addition to the sale of the personal collection there will be one or two sales later this year or next of his bookseller’s stock, solid material whose sale will turn down the lights on his formal bookselling business. The particulars of these sales have yet to be confirmed.
What we have on April 10th is the crème.
Mr. Nebenzahl’s career reaches back to the end of World War II. Two, in 1929 and eighteen in 1945, he slept through the worst of the depression and was too young for combat in Europe. He served state side for two years in the Marines, continued his education and emerged in the mid 1950’s with an interest and eye for great printed material. Today, looking back it’s clear “it was an incredible time and almost easy.” Ten years later, with prices rising, demand increasing, and supply shrinking Ken, as his friends call him, next pursued the emerging field of maps as collectibles separate from the books they often came from. He would pioneer in this field, midwifing a category that caught fire to become his primary business into the 1980s. His second auction will probably focus on maps.
Through the years the Nebenzahls raised 3 daughters, while maintaining a shop in Chicago on Michigan Avenue up until 1989. He developed a sterling reputation, issuing a long series of catalogues, selling exceptional material and establishing life-long relationships with many of the field’s important figures. Richard Lan of Martayan Lan, the New York map dealer, when asked about him recently offered “Ken Nebenzahl was one of the shrewdest and best connected dealers of his generation.”
Bernard Rosenthal, a member of the ABAA since 1955, past president and emeritus member since 2001, his contemporary and at 92, still going to the office in Oakland, California offered “Ken and I are among the last dealers with an uninterrupted view of the field from the end of WWII to the present. You did research, built relationships, issued catalogues with honest descriptions, and paid your bills on time.”
He did and continues to do well.
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At Christie's: The Nebenzahl Collection - Remnants of a Golden Age
- By Bruce McKinney
Ptolemaeus. Geographia. Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1552
Paul Saenger, George A. Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Collection Development Librarian of the Newberry wrote “Ken is an iconic figure among book dealers. At once, he embodies the highest of ethical standards, bibliographical integrity, and great scholarly acumen, all combined with exemplary human decency. Over the decades, his concern for nurturing the careers of young curators (Bob Karrow and Jim Akerman among them) has made him a remarkably effective Newberry trustee.”
In his professional career he founded some and joined other organizations and boards, the Phillip Society of the Library of Congress he founded with Eric Wolf, the Imago Mundi Society in London he served as president, the University of Chicago as board member, and Adler Planetarium and Science Museum as board member and its chairman, his eye and discernment setting him apart, his views and opinions important. What he thought mattered. Even today, four years beyond where Fulton J. Sheen said life begins he continues on the Board of the Newberry Library, one of the premier repositories of the history of the printed word.
He has also been a prolific writer and the 356 copies bearing his name – works currently on Abe - testify to this. Many are his book and map catalogues from the 1960s and 70s. Others are copies of the eight books he has authored and co-authored, many of them translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese.
They include:
Bibliography of Printed Battle Plans of the American Revolution, 1775-95
A Stone Thrown at the Map Maker
Atlas of the American Revolution / Map Selection and Commentary with Don Higginbotham
Maps of the Bible Lands: Images of Terra Sancta Through Two Millennia
Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond: 2,000 Years of Exploring the East
Maps from the Age of Discovery: Columbus to Mercator
Atlas of Columbus and the Great Discoveries: Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Discovery of America
Maps of the Holy Land
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At Christie's: The Nebenzahl Collection - Remnants of a Golden Age
- By Bruce McKinney
Wit. Composite Atlas [n.d. but circa 1704]. A superb copy
By next spring the third and final segment of material, the general stock of his shop, will have been sold or consigned, the curtain come down, the bookkeeping of an exceptional career balanced and his ledgers found to contain a deep surplus of good will.
In the mean time it falls to Christie’s and Ken’s brethren in the trade to bring his career back to public view for an encore, the evening sale on the 10th the logical catalyst. For both the serious and novice collector it is an important opportunity to observe how far intelligence, skill and integrity can take you, in this case all the way from Chicago, over and back to Europe many times and finally, after sixty years, to New York for a fabled evening sale. In observing this a few acquirers, well on their way to building major collections, will gauge their progress and use the sale to add to their collections while others, new to the game, may find inspiration to try the same climb. In this Mr. Nebenzahl, game codger that he is, has instructed Christies to set the estimates and reserves low. “I have always enjoyed a good sale and I intend to provide one.”
To provide opportunities for collectors of every stripe and budget to buy the sale is salted with items estimated $1,000 to $3,000, they set among some of the giants of book collecting that will run into the six and seven figures.
It turns out Mr. Nebenzahl departs as he arrived, with an undimmed appreciation and enthusiasm for great maps and books.
His catalogue:
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