It seems like only yesterday we started the Americana Exchange but in fact it’s been 17 years. We joined the information age for the rare book field in September 2002 when we began to digitize standard references for the rare book field. As a collector I wanted quick, broad access to what was known. In time this led to our providing broad auction coverage as the number of auction houses, events, and lots exploded. Soon after, we developed a single search of all upcoming auction lots in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera fields.
Fast forward, the world now expects up-to-date information so the building of our transaction database, which began with 151,000 records and now includes more than nine million, simply fits with the market’s increasing requirement for confirmation. In real life if we want to buy a house we find comparable properties to understand value. For rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera it’s as necessary to understand value because every collection is, in time, sold, gifted, or donated.
Perhaps the biggest change in the field is related to the number of possibilities, be they multiple copies of an item or the random appearance of an otherwise undocumented example. These days it’s possible to immediately access, with a couple clicks, rarity and significance that are essential to intelligent decision making.
An unexpected effect of larger numbers is the inevitable instinct to narrow collecting focus, once it’s clear how much material is available – a realization that tends to create iconoclastic collectors who, in understanding their fields close up, develop radically different views than those lurking in the conventional wisdom.
Taken altogether, there has never been a better time to be a collector. The possibilities are endless and the challenges right out of the Mensa handbook.
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
