Rare Book Monthly Articles - January - 2014 Issue

The AE Top 500 Prices Paid at Auction for Books and Works on Paper in 2013

Another year comes to an end, and once again it is time to look back at the highest prices paid at auction for items in the books and works on paper field. This will again be a year for record volume at auction. At the top end, we saw a record high price paid for a printed book, and a record for a manuscript letter. The former was noted for its age, the latter its content.   All of the AE Top 500 for 2013 sold at prices of $67,950 or higher. That is down slightly from last year's $71,700. Nine items exceeded $1 million in price, versus 11 last year. However, this year's record for a print...

For the Marcus Bookstore it is now or never

The Marcus Book Store sits in the lower Fillmore section of San Francisco at 1712 Fillmore Street, just north of Geary Boulevard that routes traffic east west from the downtown to the affordable ne...

AED: the numbers are in the stars

Clarity about the future is rooted in clarity about the past.  The picture that emerges will not always be appealing and will sometimes be inconvenient, particularly in a period of regression to th...

The Easy Way to Track Lots at Auction

We are now entering the start of the 2014 auction season. The season builds from now through May, when it slows for the summer. There will be many fascinating items offered, great deals for buyers,...

Book Released on Life of Eccentric Book Thief Raymond Scott

An updated account of the life of eccentric book thief Raymond Scott was recently published. The title is Shakespeare Love. The Inside Story of the Book Crime That Stunned the World. It is a simil...

Whitmore looking to the Future

It is in the nature of the book trade that the field is always adjusting the relationship between tradition and change.  The percentages will vary through the decades, prosperity is a dampener, for...

Lady Montagu Naked in a Turkish Bagnio

One day, a bookseller from New York tried to convince me to buy one of his books despite some minor defects: “I’ve been in the business for more than thirty years and trust me, the beauty of a book...

Mary Poppins & Nelson Mandela the Odd Cultural Couple for 2014

New Movies Highlight Popularity of the Books   A pair of new movies now in wide theatrical release should bring new attention to books by two authors who are already extremely well known.   The...

Auctions In January

Numbers do not always tell the whole story but when the number is the quantity of scheduled auctions in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera category for a specific month we can make compariso...

Courts Reach Contrary Decisions on Collection of Sales Tax by Out-of-State Retailers

The confusion over which out-of-state companies must collect sales tax in which states was ratcheted up another level as a result of a recent U.S. Supreme Court non-decision. The Supreme Court decl...

Mr. Munsell: waiting quietly

On a grassy knoll in Albany, New York Joel Munsell rests as he has since 1880 when his printer’s heart ran out of ink.  Mr. Munsell was a local printer who left an outsized mark that was once visib...

20 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This is a busy time of year in the cataloguing business. Twenty new bookseller's catalogues arrived in the past month. A couple of them celebrate anniversaries. From legal specialist The Lawbook Ex...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 27th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    K. Marx, Das Kapital,1867. Dedication copy. Est: € 120,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    Latin and French Book of Hours, around 1380. Est: € 25,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    Theodor de Bry, Indiae Orientalis, 1598-1625. Est: € 80,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 27th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    Breviary, Latin manuscript, around 1450-75. Est: € 10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    G. B. Piranesi, Vedute di Roma, 1748-69. Est: € 60,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    K. Schmidt-Rottluff, Arbeiter, 1921. Orig. watercolour on postcard. Est: € 18,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 27th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: € 20,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    C. J. Trew, Plantae selectae, 1750-73. Est: € 28,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    M. Beckmann, Apokalypse, 1943. Est: € 50,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 27th
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    Ulrich von Richenthal, Das Concilium, 1536. Est: € 9,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    I. Kant, Critik der reinen Vernunft, 1781. Est: €12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books, May 27:
    Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ) / Die Volks-Illustrierte (VI), 1932-38. Est: €8,000

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions