Rare Book Hub, né Americana Exchange twenty-five years ago, was intended to build a bridge to the future of collecting. Whatever that meant, I didn’t really know. But now I have a clearer idea born of building the Rare Book Transaction History database, that has become something that is greater than the sum of its parts. What does that mean?
We have long had enough information to credibly calculate rarity and value for hundreds of thousands of items and those valuations are useful to the field worldwide.
Now we’re adding an easier way to capture an instant impression of how a printed item would fit into the world of collectibles.
To do this we’ve been running a thought experiment about how we can support libraries worldwide that receive hundreds of thousands of books every day because no one wants to throw them away. Are they valuable, are they rare, or very simply is there any market for them? Tens of thousands of library staff and volunteers handle close to a million donated items a day to identify appealing material that might financially support their institutions.
To do this, we’ve developed software that anyone who has a phone, can point and shoot at a book’s title page and its backside, it’s called the verso. With that we can instantly match our records with these images to provide an estimate of value within 5 seconds.
Older material will often (but not always) have a bit more value. So that’s a good place to start. When team members browse the donations to find interesting possibilities, we’ll immediately report yea or nay and then suggest values and options.
By our calculus and Gemini’s logic, a million gifted books (in many forms) received every day at libraries in the United States by themselves. Using this software, libraries could convert 2% of this material directly into cash in an efficient way.
To test this process, we’re providing free trials to institutions. We’ll give them 200 scans per institution to see if our snaps can be turned into cashflow.
This software will find a place throughout the collectible paper world. For libraries, we have built this for them.
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
