Auction records will be categorized. They won't be going back.
Categories are Improving
Years ago we were asked to differentiate sales of baseball memorabilia from books and manuscripts because, occasionally, baseball cards dominated our weekly Top 25 lists. We stuck with that for years to convey the increasing strength of what was slowly becoming the field of collectable paper. For the past 4 years CP has become a billion-dollar sector that has become a family of categories as the number of auctions and lots have increased. Last year CP brought in $1.37 billion dollars at auction.
We recently added Top 25s for an increasingly long list of auction Categories. Currently we’re providing a dozen categories:
Top 25 by Dollars
Top 25 for Maps
Top 25 for Music
Top 25 for Manuscripts
Top 25 for Poetry
Top 25 for Newspapers
Top 25 for Southern Newspapers
Top 25 for Photography
Top 25 for Art and Arts
Top 25 for Graphics and Illustrations
Top 25 for Science
Top 25 for Vermont and New Hampshire
The lots that land within these categories are chosen because their descriptions included terms that fit there (in our view). Auction houses describe their lots uniquely. While accurately describing their lots, all descriptions aren’t always going to be picked up by our evolving criteria for selection.
To reduce the misses, we’ll study what should have been included. Those misses will give us the tools to tune them.
As well, while we are developing a dozen categories, we have already identified many others that can be added. They will be added over the next few months.
Because of the emergence of Categories, we believe the field will become broader and more self-confident. Often the big news relates to price and it’s interesting. But most collectors and collecting institutions glory in meaningful obscurities that make collecting spiritually, intellectually, and occasionally financially rewarding. Categories are going to attract auction house, consignor and bidder concentration.
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
