Necessity is the Mother of Invention: ABAA Virtual Book Fairs
- by Bruce E. McKinney
Imagination in changing times
The Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America [ABAA] is introducing its first Virtual Book Fair June 4-7 in response to a desire to reconnect within the community. These new events on the Internet reflect their commitment to ensure safe, fun and enterprising opportunities for dealers and collectors to interact to find subjects and material of mutual interest. Think of it as H. G. Wells meets Star Wars.
For this event fresh material will be posted from more than 150 dealers. A browsing visitor will be able to search the event’s database to identify items on the floor that match their search criteria. Customers can also browse by exhibitor, product type, or aisle. Think of it this way: more choices much faster. The field has long loved traditional book fairs but has struggled to maintain an appropriate balance between the time consumed, fresh material found, new relationships developed and sales and purchases completed. The disaster of Covid-19 is becoming the catalyst for fresh thinking.
While the cause is temporary, there may well be many electronic book fairs in future, subject to sufficient and appropriate material, if the developing pattern holds, when future fairs may be most successful when their subjects and forms are narrow.
As the ABAA is developing their virtual fairs, while focusing on sales, they understand that the social component of their immensely important fairs has long been known to be a significant element in their success. And why? Because book collectors are a unique breed, know this, and feel empowered when convention centers are packed to the rafters with thousands of other similarly enthralled souls.
Here are some details.
When will this show begin and when will it end?
The ABAA’s inaugural Virtual Book Fair will begin on June 4th at 10am EST and the “doors” remain open 24 hours until the event’s closing June 7th at 10pm EST. There is no charge to visit the Virtual Book Fair. For more information and to access the fair, visit https://www.abaa.org/blog/post/how-to-shop-the-virtual-book-fair.
Customers can contact the fair exhibitors by the methods they note. Those might include email, phone, Facetime, Zoom, or Google Meet.
Items are subject to prior sale and for sale on a first-come basis.
As it’s possible participants may buy material from multiple sources. The ABAA’s software anticipates this so that dealer’s and buyer’s location will automatically reflect the correct amount of sales tax. This is right and proper.
As well, while the primary objective of these shows is and always will be to create relationships and sales, the ABAA is very smart to focus on audience demographics to create a broader market with a younger and even more diverse audience.
I hope you’ll be one to buy something. Think of yourself as being on the Nina, Pinta or the Santa Maria! It’s a new day.
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
