Rare Book Monthly

Articles - April - 2006 Issue

Auctions in April and May

April is a busy month for auctions.


By Bruce McKinney

Around the world more than 35,000 lots of interesting books, manuscripts, ephemera, paintings and prints will be sold at traditional auctions over the next sixty days. Fifty three auction events in April and fifty-five in May are already scheduled and more events will be confirmed in the weeks ahead. There are 97 specific auctions, many of them multi-day affairs.

In April eighteen auctions are scheduled in the United States and another fifteen in May. This is 108 auctions over sixty days, a heady run of interesting and collectible materials. In truth, the relative strength of the auction markets favors Europe even more than a comparison of the number of auctions suggestions because European auctions are not only more frequent; they are also larger.

Only a few years ago the auction market seemed to be lagging the general population in its embrace of the internet. Today it is one of the strongest categories on line as both auction house and bidder have come to realize that material and information trump physical proximity. Of course expensive materials continue to warrant dealer confirmation and representation in the rooms but the trust threshold for bidding at auctions you only know about on line is rising. Only a year or two ago it was unusual to bid more than $500 on a single lot whose information was accessible primarily by internet. Today, and even as we speak, better auction documentation and better bidder research tools are changing traditional auction houses from essentially local businesses into national and in some cases international sellers. Familiarity, knowledge and safeguards are transforming this field, opening the bidding to a much larger community of active buyers.

With respect to the upcoming sales it is difficult to single out specific items and sales because there is so much material to consider. What is highly probable is that if you run free searches in the SEARCH and RESEARCH box on the AE home page periodically over the next two months you will find items to bid on. I can't say if the lots will be in London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Dublin or elsewhere. They'll be interesting and well described. They'll be in different sales probably thousands of miles apart. What connects them is your unique perspective on what's important.

Every auction deserves to be singled out but it's simply not possible with so much material heading into the sales rooms. That said, the range of auctions suggests there are probably going to be several sales within a reasonable drive of your home so it may be possible to see a sale first hand. Simply attending one, particularly if you haven't attended a sale recently, is a good way to understand how the process is changing. Most auction houses now offer bidding by phone and some provide direct bidding via the internet. I use this option myself and believe it will become a standard in a few years. This said it's important to remember that bidders are expected to bid, not think. Even a painting that sells for twenty million dollars is going to be sold in 90 seconds. You need to do your thinking in advance and to decide how far you'll go before the item comes up. Whether in person, by phone, or on line you need to trust the system and move up to your limit as quickly as bids are called for. Auction houses overwhelmingly are honest. They have to be because good reputations are hard earned and easily lost.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    30th May 2024
    Forum, May 30: Potter (Beatrix). Complete set of four original illustrations for the nursery rhyme, 'This pig went to market', 1890s. £60,000 to £80,000.
    Forum, May 30: Dante Alighieri.- Lactantius (Lucius Coelius Firmianus). Opera, second edition, Rome, 1468. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum, May 30: Distilling.- Brunschwig (Hieronymus). Liber de arte Distillandi de Compositis, first edition of the so-called 'Grosses Destillierbuch', Strassburg, 1512. £22,000 to £28,000.
    Forum, May 30: Eliot (T.S.), W. H. Auden, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, Robert Lowell, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, & others. A Personal Anthology for Eric Walter White, 60 autograph poems. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum, May 30: Cornerstone of French Enlightenment Philosophy.- Helvetius (Claude Adrien). De l'Esprit, true first issue "A" of the suppressed first edition, Paris, 1758. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    30th May 2024
    Forum, May 30: Szyk (Arthur). The Haggadah, one of 125 copies, this out-of-series, Beaconsfield Press, 1940. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum, May 30: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, first impression, 1953. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum, May 30: Japan.- Ryusui (Katsuma). Umi no Sachi [Wealth of the Sea], 2 vol., Tokyo, 1762. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, May 30: Computing.- Operating and maintenance manual for the BINAC binary automatic computer built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation 1949, Philadelphia, 1949. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, May 30: Burmese School (probably circa 1870s). Folding manuscript, or parabaik, from the Court Workshop at the Royal Court at Manadaly, Burma, [c.1870s]. £8,000 to £12,000.
  • 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
  • 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
  • Manuscript Masterpieces from the Schøyen Collection
    London auction, 11 June
    BROWSE NOW
    Christie’s, Explore now: The Holkham Hebrew Bible. In Hebrew, decorated manuscript on vellum [Toledo, 2nd quarter 13th century]. £1,500,000–3,000,000
    Christie’s, Explore now: The Crosby-Schøyen Codex. In Coptic, manuscript on papyrus [Upper Egypt, middle 3rd century / 4th century]. £2,000,000–3,000,000
    Christie’s, Explore now: The Geraardsbergen Bible. In Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Southern Netherlands, late 12th century]. £700,000–1,000,000
    Christie’s, Explore now : Jean de Courcy (fl. 1420). The Chronique de la Bouquechardiere. In French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1480]. £200,000–300,000
    Christie’s, Explore now: The ‘Catherine de Medici’ Hours. In Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1485]. £120,000–180,000

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