An educational and informational site about rare, old and antiquarian books.
Collectors who buy and sell Bibles have pushed the pricing of older editions printed prior to the 1700’s in Europe, and prior to the 1800’s in North America, to unreachable levels for the majority of liturgical buyers. During the second half of the last century, institutional and private collectors have driven these editions of the […]
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Stopping at a yard sale a few years back, I picked up a set of The Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition, produced during the year 1910. Fascinated by the idea of owning a cross section of the trunk of the tree of knowledge just prior to the First World War, when the publication was at a crossroads with […]
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As there has been an unfortunate increase in the number of forged signatures over the last few years, I have cut back my purchasing of rare books that are signed by their authors and are not guaranteed to be genuine. The following guidelines that I have collected from a variety of sources have proven to […]
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Towards the end of last century, antiquarian book dealer William S. Reese presented his much publicized view of “The Rare Book Market Today” at Brown University. In this historical retrospect beginning with the depressed years prior to World War II, 1945 was picked to be the year of the greatest buying opportunity, since rare books […]
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Sotheby’s sold Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925, at an auction last month for $377,000 including buyer premium. The lot was traded at the high end of the estimated value, signifying the fact that rare book investors and collectors will pay premium prices to acquire top quality books. This particular […]
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Having identified the Prime Meridian, where longitude is defined as 0°, as being Greenwich, we have also acknowledged the starting point of exploration. An imaginary great circle on the earth’s surface passing through the North and South geographic poles places tremendous appreciation to the explorers who first sailed ship from that point going into strange […]
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The art and craft of the book is as broad in content as the human mind over the course of centuries itself. Throughout history, the production of the book has spanned from manuscripts to avant-garde, from traditional forms of design, art techniques and hand-manufacture to the latest technologies, imaging sciences, and automated printing machines. Whether […]
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Yesterday, the Christie’s auction house sold The Rothchild Prayerbook, a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript for $13,605,000 with the buyer’s premium. The auction held at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York had an estimated sale value of $12,000,000-$18,000,000. The book, a masterpiece of Renaissance art, contains lavish and extensive miniature illustrations of unsurpassed beauty in […]
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What would the Christmas season be without A Christmas Carol? A Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol, that is. The beloved story which was adopted into film a few times and is frequently staged during the holiday season in a theatrical production near you captures the essence of the Christmas spirit. The book itself is the world’s […]
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…And the world’s most expensive book sale in the history of book trades goes to the Bay Psalm Book owned by the Old South Church. It sold for 33 million US dollars to the auction’s high bidder: the new owner of the rare first book to be printed in America, billionaire collector of biblical books, […]
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