The material hasn’t changed much other than getting older. Books and manuscripts have long been appreciated and most of their secrets have been discovered. Maps too are understood. In most cases relating to collectible paper, when their authors, titles and dates are known there’s only three variables to understand: current condition, value, and how many people will be interested?
For this reason, transaction histories for collectible paper, like ours, have long played an important role in the worldwide field. Currently we’re providing 13.5 million records but surprisingly, there’s...
San Francisco based Bruce McKinney, 77, is the founder of RareBookHub.com. At RBH, subscribers can access over 13.5 million searchable auction and other transactions updated several times weekly. T...
Old Maps has provided paid research services for the collectible map community for more than three decades. Until April 15th, 2024 we have taken down their paywall to allow everyone to join, searc...
How many books do people own? YouGov recently surveyed 29,000 Americans to ask them about the books they owned. They asked about both physical and electronic books, but we will limit ourselves to p...
For many years we have offered an automated search tool to identify interesting upcoming material at auction in the quickest time. On our toolbar it’s called MatchMaker.
Auction lots tend to ...
I had the good fortune to grow up with parents who were antiquarian book dealers, so we lived in a house filled with books. My father was an avid collector of cartoon albums, especially from the fi...
In 1787, the Royal Navy sent Anthony Hopkins—sorry, Lieutenant William Bligh, to Tahiti, where he was to pick up some breadfruit plants. He was then to take them to Jamaica to feed the slaves. The ...
While this community of bibliophiles has weathered deep challenges over the years, the Book Club of Detroit has shown remarkable resilience. Owing to its long history, leadership, and talented memb...
A major theft from the University of Warsaw Library reveals that large-scale library theft is not limited to America and Western Europe. This one followed an increasingly common method of throwing ...
New York—The Thursday, December 7 sale of Maps Atlases, Natural History Color Plate Books at Swann Galleries is set to include a wide assortment of maps and graphics chronicling the advancement o...
It was recently announced that some 20,000 records dealing with Indian boarding schools run by the Quakers will be made available through the recently created National Indian Boarding School Digita...
We have another story in the run of long overdue library books being returned out of the blue, to the surprise of librarians. This one came back to the Larchmont Public Library in Larchmont, New Yo...
If you're looking for holiday gifts, whether for family, friends, or yourself, the ABAA is offering a quick and easy solution for the book collectors in your life. It's an online fair, but there wi...
The Philadelphia Rare Book Fair returns to the Trinity Memorial Church this year from December 7-9. There will be 25+ booksellers from not only the Philadelphia area but throughout the Northeast an...
This month we review six new bookseller catalogues. Librairie Clavreuil presents Part II of their collection of French literature, this time covering the 18th-20th centuries. Primary Sources focuse...
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