Rare Book Monthly
Articles - January - 2010 Issue
An Auction Up Close
Life and death at 100 yards
I have also broken with tradition by including source, year and price paid for each item. I know that this is important for the field but not yet certain how bidders will respond. Bloomsbury has over the four and half months we have been preparing this sale, moved week by week from "you're not serious" to "you're serious" to "it's your decision" to "we think it will be okay." I understand their concerns. This is an important sale but, as an auction house, they need new consignments all the time. Should the field raise an uproar, they will walk with me to death row but won't be holding my hand when the electric shock is delivered.
Stephen opens lot one. It's Breydenbach's 1490 "Peregrinatio in terram sanctam." It's not a new world item but was purchased as a view of the world in the final moments of the "world before Columbus." It's a hand colored copy I purchased from Richard Lan in 2000 for $145,000. It brings $108,000 in 90 seconds. Bloomsbury had estimated it at $70,0000 to $100,000.
Lot 2 is Hartmann Schedel's "Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten" printed in 1493. The new world has been discovered but the news not reached Nuremberg. Nothing of course has changed today. News travels faster but acceptance still takes time. I bought this copy at Sotheby's London in 2000 for $176,720. Today, with an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000, it brings $180,000.
Lot 3 is Giuliano Dati's "Il Secondo Cantare del' India. Mr. Dati had the good sense to write about the new world before anyone but Columbus and his very brief pronouncements have come down to us as harbingers of the new world. I bought it from Stephane Clavreuil in Paris in 1998 for $110,000. It quickly changes hands at $102,000.
Lot 4 is Baptista Mantuanus's "De patientia aurei libri tres." I bought it from Bill Reese in 2000 for $7,000. Today it is estimated $5,000-$7,000 and brings $7,200.
I'm encouraged. I know that prices generally peaked around 2006, treaded water into early 2008 before evaporating in the fourth quarter. I have believed the market bottomed in 2009 and is, by category, recovering at different rates. This material falls into the strongest category because it is European-Americana and attracts old world interest from bidders whose currencies are much stronger than the dollar. Their dollar chips these days cost only 80 cents +/-.
Lot 5 is BERGOMENSIS FORESTI's 1497 "Nouissime historia omniu[m] repercussiones, nouiter [editae]... que Supplementum." Estimated at $5,000-$7,000 it brings $9,000. I bought it in 1995 at a New York Historical Society sale at Sotheby's for $2,587.
Lot 6 is another new world reference. This one, printed in 1497, is Johann Stamler's "Dyalogus ... de diversarum gencium sectis et mundi religionibus." I bought it at Swann in 2000 for $1,300. Today it is estimated at $1,500 to $2,500 and brings $4,560.
