What was not so long ago called book collecting has been transforming into the field of collectible paper. What kept traditional book collecting understandable were the fixed boundaries provided by the many reference materials that made it possible for the interested to immediately understand what they were researching. Quick clarity has always been vital given that books were often offered in open shelves.
Of course, the Internet has recast the book buyer and seller equations and now name and title searches provide transaction history in a flash. We get a sense of how tedious searching pre-Internet was when you occasionally find seller’s lists today that aren’t searchable. Good grief. Do you really want to browse through hundreds of items with no clear expectation what you’ll find? Life is simply too short to waste time that way.
Fortunately books are close to a settled matter. Certainly previously unknown copies come to light. Attics, garages and basements still hold a sense of potential discovery and often the hopeful are rewarded.
But for what will soon be the new wild world of collectible paper – ephemera – is barely in its organizational stage. That term appears only 121,559 times in our Transaction History in the 13,057,177 records today.
Into the future, most of the tens of millions of potentially collectible ephemera will not be catalogued until images are captured and software analyzes them automatically. Bingo shazam.
The nub? Ephemera usually lacks some or all of the standard identifiers. Image comparison will be the key and such technologies will have to find a financial basis to justify their development and implementation.
Certainly famous and important ephemera appear at auction and in dealer and library catalogues today because they are known to be important and/or valuable.
But until the rarity and value of the millions of random papers and printings that are stuffed in boxes and buried in attics worldwide, is established, there are millions of ephemera that will have to wait for their moment in the sun.
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
