Rare Book Hub is the combination of facts and numbers about books and recently the number of auctions covering books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera has rapidly increased this year. To illustrate this I’m showing the number of auctions posted on Rare Book Hub between January 1st to May 31st for the past 5 years. We have typically seen an 8% increase year over year.
During 2021 this number has increased a further 29.56%. That’s a very large increase on what had already become a large number.
Here are the numbers:
Auctions Posted at Rare Book Hub by Month
% Increase
2017
519
2018
569
9.65%
2019
615
8.08%
2020
663
7.80%
2021
859
29.56%
There are several reasons for this.
Transparency has benefits:
We, as a reporting site for the collectible paper field, by aggregating data, show comparative success and failure, in ways that are easy to understand. I have no doubt decisionmakers use this information to adjust their planning. Simply stated: facts clarify and performance improves.
It’s recently become much easier to become an auction house:
The simplifying of posting online auctions has become a big story. Becoming an auction house was once a perilous decision. Today the major auction posting services can turn an eBayer into a profitable fully functioning auction house in a matter of months.
And the trend looks to continue to strengthen.
It’s logical that the upper echelon of dealers in rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera worldwide, will become auction houses themselves. For them, auctions will be one of their tools, among listing on the major bookselling sites, posting on their own sites, participating both in person and online bookfairs, as well continuing to develop interesting printed and eCatalogues. Auctions will become one of the arrows in their quiver.
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
