Another year has come to its conclusion so once again it is time to look back at the top 500 highest priced items sold in the books and paper collectible field for the past year. Along with books, we count manuscripts, maps, comics, trading cards, certain prints and photographs (which ones described at end of article), and other occasional ephemeral paper or related items.
One thing that jumps out is that high end collectors, like those across the entire spectrum, were pulling back on what they spent. Sometimes the most financially endowed spend regardless of conditions but not this yea...
When I was a kid, in the 1950’s, Christmas was the way my family compensated for the disaster we were living through. It was almost worth it but left me memories of how my family when in trouble, ...
Collectible paperbacks, a category that includes science fiction, mysteries, westerns, adventure, horror, romance, pulp fiction and much more is still alive and well. There are few people as knowle...
The British library is still struggling to find its way out of the massive disruptions created by a cyberattack that occurred on October 7. The attackers grabbed an enormous amount of data from the...
The other day, I did something I hate: I bought a book in a very bad condition. Head cap gone with the jaw hanging loose, corners bumped and old water stains all throughout. And the price wasn’t ev...
Throughout our over 80 years in business, Swann has been able to maintain our traditional approach to auctions while innovating, growing and adapting to each new era. With 2023 slowly winding to it...
Christie’s Books Manuscripts Department is pleased to present two auctions for January 2024: Fine Printed and Manuscript Americana (live, 17 January 2024), and Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts I...
The California International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to San Francisco in 2024! This three-day event features fine and rare materials from around the globe, including manuscripts, first editio...
Sales were a bit softer during the six months ending on September 30, 2023, than they were for the same period in 2022 for the parent of Shapero Rare Books and Shapero Modern, which markets modern ...
The United Kingdom's Department for Culture, Media Sport has placed a bar on the export of a recently discovered 13th century New Testament. Oddly, the illuminated manuscript on parchment is in Fr...
Two hundred and seven auction houses and venues contributed 2,427 sales this year to our Transaction History. Altogether they offered 625,248 lots and 468,565 changed hands and kept us busy every ...
The Rare Book Hub Monthly is the free portion of RareBookHub.com. On the first of each month we publish a selection of articles and briefs. Here are some of our stories from 2023.
Some of the lea...
COLLECTING INSIGHTS
Starting in 2024, experienced Collections Advisor and author of Contemporary Issues in Rare Book Manuscript Collecting, Spencer W Stuart will facilitate monthly, three-part...
This book has a history of living dangerously. Nevertheless, it is finally back home in the St. Paul Public Library, even if the library had no idea it was missing.
The book is Famous Composers...
This month we review five new bookseller catalogues. Harald Hultqvist Rare Books offers a very special copy of Robert Owen's A New View of Society. Ursus Rare Books features modern graphic design. ...
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
