THE TRIUMPH OF PAPER AMERICANA AT BOTH CHRISTIE'S and SOTHEBY'S
- by Eric Caren
Extra, Extra!! A newspaper sells for $3.360,000
Ok, so my 9th single owner auction of "How History Unfolds on Paper from The Eric C. Caren Collection" has come and gone...but that is the small news.
The big news is that Sotheby's sold 2 newspapers for 7 figures each and Christie's sold a manuscript placard for the same! When I started in the 1960's you would have been lucky to get $5,000 for all 3. Of course then I literally could not afford 5 dollars! In fact, I was interviewed in 1987 by a prominent newspaper about my feelings before The Pennsylvania Packet with the front page printing of The US Constitution was sold in the rooms. I had already been told that Bill Reese and John Jenkins had purchased that exact issue at either Sotheby's or Christie's for less than 10k. Soon thereafter, Jenkins promoted it at a then whopping price of $85,000 in his catalog! Everyone was stunned except Reese and Jenkins...It went on to break into 6 figures and now over 1 Million Dollars at Sotheby's.
Paper, once the garbage of the rare book world, is now the treasure of the field amongst dealers, collectors, and institutions.
First Christie's sold a manuscript broadside relating to the much hated Stamp Act for......
Not to be outdone, Sotheby's answered with 2 newspapers (including the one aforementioned), each of which brought 7 figures!!
I had owned Patriot John Holt's issue of The NY Journal with the back page broadside printed format Declaration of Independence, many years ago. It was described accurately as a hybrid newspaper/ broadside.
Bruce McKinney and The Rare Book Hub have broken their backs to report more Ephemera and Paper Americana sales on top of their world-class holdings of Books and Autographs price and description holdings.
Today newspapers may now be mainly digital, but the past was recorded in ink and type on PAPER!
It is a vast, growing field with bargains and high prices abounding!
After collecting it for half a century, I can truly say that I get as much pleasure from a 10 dollar item that I have never seen as I do from the gems in the field!
So, when the smoke cleared:
The defiant 1765 anti-Stamp Act broadside sold for $4,527,000.00!
The 1776 newspaper printing of The Declaration of Independence, set a record price for a newspaper at $3,360,000.00
The Pennsylvania Packet newspaper printing of The US Constitution broke one million dollars!
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
