Over the second weekend of February, while the ABAA, is in the midst of its always popular annual winter weekend in California, both PBA and Bonhams will conduct auctions on Sunday the 11th at the same venue next to the Pasadena Convention Center: the Pasadena Sheraton (in different suites).
Here is how PBA describe theirs.
A two-part sale to be held at the Pasadena Sheraton in the Cordova Room on Sunday February 11 at 8:00 am
Join us for this special sale, Sunday morning during the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America) Book Fair in Pasadena, California. The sale will be held at 8:00 am in the Cordova room of the Pasadena Sheraton, 303 East Cordova Street, just next door to the Pasadena Convention Center and the 51st California International Antiquarian Book Fair.
The first half of the auction will be PBA's offering of Rare Books & Manuscripts, with the second part devoted to books donated by ABAA members to benefit the Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund which was established to benefit all booksellers in times of distress. The descriptions of the books are by the donor members, and we have worked with them on setting fair estimates for the wide range of fine material. As always, there will be full provisions for absentee, phone, and online bidding.
Here is a link to the PBA site.
Bonhams
Fine Books and Manuscripts featuring the Library of James “Ted” Watkins to be held on 11 February 2018, starting at 10:30 PST at the Sheraton Pasadena Hotel in the Magnolia Room
Ted’s collecting was informed by his faith and his interest in the history of the Catholic Church and the sale opens with a selection of his early printed material. His material then continues to appear randomly in the Science and Technology, Americana, History, Travel Literature and Plate Books, and Art and Literature sections. His library includes rare incunables of canon law and important theological tracts; books and manuscripts of Catholic writers such as Flannery O’Connor, whose faith was so central to her literary vision.
In our Science and Technology section, we offer a wide variety of property, from an early alchemical manuscript to an excerpt from Isaac Newton’s manuscript on prophecy to a remarkable archive of correspondence between Werner Heisenberg and Bruno Rossi. The section closes with a fine example of a 3-rotor German Enigma I Enciphering Machine.
Our Americana section is anchored by important manuscripts relating to New Spain conquistador Hernando Cortes and his heirs, (many of whom were viceroys in New Spain); a Peter Force Declaration of Independence; a second volume in original boards of a first edition of The Federalist Papers; the first English section of Lewis and Clark’s Travels to the Source of the Missouri River….; and a manuscript page from Webster’s dictionary.
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
