An educational and informational site about rare, old and antiquarian books.
The first quarter of 2012 marks the return of the best performer of the Rare Book Sale Monitor (RBSM) category breakdown –Arts/Photography/Architecture, to pre 4th quarter 2011 levels. Our top performer showed a slight decline in price appreciation during the end of last year and had a mediocre 2011 performance overall, which was very uncharacteristic. […]
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As the year of the Kindle and the Nook came to a close, one trend proved to be here for the long haul: “digitalization is increasing prices of rare and fine physical books.” In fact, 2011 proved to be a great year for rare book sellers as collectors bid prices higher and there is every […]
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The 3rd Quarter of 2011 contained no major surprises to any of our tracking monitor – RBSM, sales trends previously established. The book category of Art/Photography/Architecture is still leading the way in the rare book category breakdown. The higher sale price comeback for this category started at the beginning of this year and has been […]
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In a recent article, Rare Books: What makes them rare, we mentioned the nine reasons a book may become rare and in demand,with a high monetary value. One of the nine reasons mentioned was Scarcity. Scarcity is the factor that has driven the value to the book, ‘’Hebrew is Greek’’ by Joseph Ezekiel Yahuda, to […]
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The popular phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is often used to convey that a complex idea can be represented and communicated more quickly and efficiently with just a single still image. In the world of rare books the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand …….”(fill in the currency), is sometimes more […]
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Recently Sotheby’s has auctioned a rare manuscript of an unfinished novel written by the well known and famous writer/novelist, Jane Austen. This rare manuscript was sold for the astronomical amount of 993.250 Sterling Pounds (1623K USD) to the Bodleian Oxford library and one can say that it stayed ‘’home’’ in the UK. Rare manuscripts have […]
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After several years of unprecedented growth during the last decade, sales of new books in the religion category have declined significantly. Since 2007, sales as reported by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), have declined by more than 25%. The year by year breakdown of revenues reported is as follows: 2010 2009 2008 2007 $585.4M $614.3M […]
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Ask any rare book dealer – “how’s business” and the response may very well be – “slow but steady.” Regardless of whether selling books on-line or through bricks and mortar outlet stores, the nature of the business is not very volatile with peak and valley type of activity. It is a business that can never […]
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To a rare book lover, the film version of the story will never be as good as the book itself. But a film does offer an artistic expression that is quite different and visually enjoyable, especially when it comes to science fiction with special effects. Literary work allows the reader to use the imagination more liberally […]
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Towards the end of last year, 66-year old British book dealer Michael Tollemache, spent 11.5 million US dollars for a complete set of John James Audubon’s “Birds of America.” A new price record for the sale of a rare book was set as a result. The four-volume, double-elephant sized book was painted by naturalist Audubon […]
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