Rare Book Monthly
Articles - October - 2010 Issue
The Collector Becomes a Seller
A Two Years Journal in New York
In the same century transportation is extended, the speeds increasing, the time needed to travel always less. The population, that in 1800 lives on farms, is freed by rising yields and mechanization to move to cities, new places now the hubs of transportation networks that move food, fuel and construction material from ever greater distances to cities where the American industrial revolution, in the presence of population and transportation, will lead America to become an important world power by the end of the century and world leader in the 20th century. In all this, the printed word has its say and its place.
Altogether its a remarkable story. So the Bonham's team proceeds apace. They have been working for months. Auctions may seem to the outsider to be a one day affair but are more accurately described as graduation ceremonies celebrating months of work.
This month, in this the third video segment relating to the upcoming sale, Christina brings us into the gathering interstices of the approaching sale. The material. The place. The moment. As of October 1st there are 64 days to go. Material goes into boxes, some on the way to previews, some simply to decamp from the cataloguing carrels in San Francisco for transit to showcases in New York.
The catalogue comes into view and the luxury of time disappears into the drumbeat of countdown.
Click here to sign up for a copy of the hardbound catalogue to be released in late October.
This month Bonham's has prepared another installment of their ongoing presentation on the preparation of the sale. Click here to view it.
Adam Stackhouse and I will be in Bonham's booth at the Seattle Book Fair over the weekend of the 9th and 10th. Come by to say hello.
