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 the norm such as we are in today. In such times clarity is particularly important.
I believe a complete record of all auction records from 1875 to yesterday for books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera offered at auction is still three years away but the Americana Exchange Database, a continuing and growing project, is already very complete and many times more complete than any other efforts to aggregate auction records have ever been.
This completeness will be necessary for the rebuilding of confidence in a collecting area of enormous importance that is consolidating at lower price levels but will rise again based on increasing clarity about relevance and rarity. The field is in its autumn but will, in time again have its spring as new collectors are attracted by lower prices and the complex opportunities to see what has been unknown and unknowable.
Through this transition the opportunities and risks will be substantial. Those who use the AED as a guide will find their feet firmly planted. In such periods it is easy to make mistakes. With the AED there will be many substantial wins and fewer mistakes.
Such errors are important because it is collectors that are now stabilizing the field and it is with them that the future will be determined. It is important that they experience success. Honest dealer descriptions and logical prices, well-described and well-estimated auction lots and the AED together are a basis for a secure future.
For our part we will continue to build the AED. It was a year ago at four million records. We start 2014 at 5,150,984. It is what we can do and it is what we should do. The future of the field requires nothing less.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
Forum, May 28:The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000
