Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 4th Quarter, 2016

January 27, 2017
Thumbnail image for Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 4th Quarter, 2016

  Last quarter’s coverage of the big rare book auctions, focused almost entirely on the new price record set by a first edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, which has become the most expensive printed scientific book ever sold at auction after a winning bid of $3.7m (£3m), nearly two and a half times […]

Read the full article →

Pleased to Meet you, Hope you Guess my Name

January 10, 2017
Thumbnail image for Pleased to Meet you, Hope you Guess my Name

I was born in Mainz, Germany. I lived for the first month of my life in a printing plant before being brought to a merchant. I can remember very little about that time, for as soon as I left the plant I was securely stored away in a bookcase outside of town.  I was very […]

Read the full article →

The Ingredients of the Rarest Christmas Book

December 15, 2016
Thumbnail image for The Ingredients of the Rarest Christmas Book

At a local book trade show not more than three months ago, I had the opportunity to meet up with a few old friends and exchange some provocative conversations relating to my favorite topic – books.  The antiquarian book dealer in this particular conversation was delighted to bring up some quite interesting points on the […]

Read the full article →

Tarantula by Bob Dylan

November 25, 2016
Thumbnail image for Tarantula by Bob Dylan

What do T. S. Eliot, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Pearl Buck, Elias Canetti, Gunter Grass, John Steinbeck, Harold Pinter, Ernest Hemingway and Bob Dylan have in common? They have all been honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s most prestigious and coveted award. The 2016 winner, Bob Dylan, […]

Read the full article →

Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 3rd Quarter, 2016

October 22, 2016
Thumbnail image for Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 3rd Quarter, 2016

In terms of total dollars, global auction sales of rare books in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2016 were slightly down from the same period in 2015; this year’s $87 million figure, for the period, represents a 6% decrease compared to last year. But a closer look at the top three markets – the […]

Read the full article →

The Rarest Milestone in the Science Fiction Genre

October 2, 2016
Thumbnail image for The Rarest Milestone in the Science Fiction Genre

Do Jules Verne’s works categorize as science fiction? The French author who has been called the “Father of Science Fiction”, along with authors such as H. G. Wells, Hugo Gernsback, Lucian of Samosata and Mary Shelley, often argued against classifying his novels as scientific. In fact, he has often been labeled a writer of genre […]

Read the full article →

From the Hinman Collator to Machine Intelligence

September 16, 2016
Thumbnail image for From the Hinman Collator to Machine Intelligence

Past Technology: Lights and Mirrors The students at the University of Virginia Rare Book School, receive, as part of a course in Advanced Descriptive Bibliography, a demonstration of the 450 pound Hinman Collator. The purpose of the machine, which was developed during the 1940s by Charlton Hinman, was to help detect typographical variations in the […]

Read the full article →

The Factor of Color in Early Centenary Printing

September 2, 2016
Thumbnail image for The Factor of Color in Early Centenary Printing

17th century German Jesuit scholar, Athanasius Kircher, published around 40 works, exploring a variety of topics, ranging from a universal language scheme, to pneumatic, hydraulic, catoptric and magnetic science. His books are lavishly illustrated, written in Latin, and were in wide circulation during the 17th century. Collectors historically have sought some of his most notable […]

Read the full article →

The Bible of the Revolution

August 19, 2016
Thumbnail image for The Bible of the Revolution

The Aitken Bible is one of the most celebrated American Bibles, considered to be the first complete English Bible printed in America. Before the War for Independence, British law gave a monopoly for printing the King James Version of the Bible to the Royal Printer; thus compelling the colonies to buy their Bibles from England. […]

Read the full article →

Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 2nd Quarter, 2016

August 5, 2016
Thumbnail image for Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 2nd Quarter, 2016

The 2nd quarter of 2016 felt the tremors caused by the UK affirmative Brexit vote. The subsequent drop in the value of the British currency delivered a rather controlled above normal interest in rare books offered in British pounds. Opportunistic buyers took advantage of the lower dollar or euro to sterling exchange rate, mostly through […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →