The plan here is to rundown the auction from June 30 out in Northampton based on my pithy and sometimes impenetrable notes in the auction catalog. In deference to the kids out there, I will try to keep it PG-13. Some of my condition notes get a little florid.:
The Auction.
Picked up a set of Ingoldsby Legends - 1st, 2nd and 3rd Series - in Riviere bindings. Thomas Ingoldsby (a.k.a. Harris Barham) wrote some terribly popular legends, including the Jackdaw of Rheims, that no one cares about, currently. These are pretty nice looking though, and bad economies are good for legends. That’s just common sense.
A beat to hell (cover detached, library markings) copy of the “First Complete Bible Printed in Hawaii” (in Hawaiian) went for $3200, in range. It says there were only 500 printed, but that seems like quite a few giant 4to bibles in Hawaiian, in 1843.
Picked up a complete set, in original wraps, of Ambrose Bierce’s “Grizzly Papers” (written as Ursus) from Bret Harte’s Overland Monthly. This was a 5 part series of philosophical ruminations by Bierce on a variety of topics. They are noted for their seriousness of purpose compared to his other writings of the period, though “If you find a man starving the least you can do is loan him your umbrella” and “There is not a more erroneous belief than that one good turn deserves another. By repaying a kindness you reduce it to the level of barter.” are both found here.
4 Richard Burton books all went in range - including the notably rare Sindh for $3200. We picked up a Letters from the Battle-Fields of Paraguay.
As usual I couldn’t resist and bought a couple giant things that no one but me wanted to carry out to their car. I’d call this a strategy except that it’s more a compulsion - a mixture of my Scottish love of a bargain and a tendency to discount how heavy things are. This time it was a 24 volume set of “Oriental Series” and a set of 8 portfolios of Modern (1884) Painters in a ridiculous, silk lined, wooden box. Had to have it.
Signed Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October $450!
The cataloger missed or ignored the 1774 book with Sir Richard Burton’s bookplate and library marks, but my colleagues regrettably didn’t.
First American of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities went way below estimate ($4-6,000) at $1800. It was a little banged up, but…
A couple of great pre-1400 deeds in various Old English dialects went for more than I would have liked, and just over estimates of 200-300.
Someone bought a biography of Oliver Cromwell for $250 - we watch for people buying books about people like Cromwell, Stalin, Pinochet and put them on the list. Don’t think we don’t notice.
A nice 4to first of Genet’s Querelle de Brest that I REALLY wanted to buy went over range for $550.
I bought something about the Earl of Selkirk and the Red River. Those crazy Earls!
A program and menu from the “Round the World” Zeppelin flight signed by a ton of borderline famous people attracted some interest, but I missed what it sold for because I was wondering what to do about the aforementioned giant wooden box of Modern Painters that was up next.
A crazy 1902 edition of Frank Johnson’s Forest, Lake and River. The Fishes of New England, with this absurd extra illustrated 3′ x 4′ portfolio bound in burlap with sinkers attached to it that held 12 lithographs. Silliest thing I’ve ever seen sell for $9500 (high end of range).
Beat up London first of Ulysses went for $650.
Bought a first English edition of Kant’s Critick of Pure Reason (London, 1838) when it met a wall of indifference. Seems important to me, but I’ve been wrong on philosophy before (meet our first American edition of Rousseau’s Dissertation on Political Economy that I can’t rid myself of).
Lavater’s great book, Essays on Physiognomy (I mention it like I’d ever heard of it before Tuesday) went over range at $1800. It has a couple William Blake plates and analyzes the appearance of George Washington, Ben Franklin, and others.
Interesting philosophical manuscript from 1706 went over range for $325. When I say interesting, I mean theoretically interesting. My two years of C+ Latin weren’t doing the trick.
As usual a photo album went for 8x the estimate.
A letter from Ezra Pound about Mussolini went for $1700 after I had put the over under at $450 just a couple of days ago (via Twitter).
Northwest passage and arctic travel books seemed to do ok or better.
I think I bought something called The History of the Absorbent System which seems like a weird thing to do. What I definitely bought was a book on rural improvements (1796) which should have been called How to Build Roman Revival Outhouses, Cattle Sheds that look like Norman Castles and other Necessities. Great book.
Twain went pretty well. A Huck Finn of uncertain bibliographical priority went below range but still for $2700, and I picked up a Following the Equator for a decent price, but he was ok, overall. Mostly the estimates just seemed a little high. My only problem with Twain is that he was SO popular and has stayed so popular, that even a mild flagging of popularity and you could end up with a ton of extra supply out there. The print runs of some his his late works - that often still sell for big prices - had to have been huge. Case in point: A lovely 50 volume set of Thackeray, in full leather, from Eugene Field’s library that were estimated at $1500 - $2500 couldn’t find a bidder at $500 and got passed. Thackeray used to be popular too.
I bought a second edition of Virgil’s Aeneid translated into Scots (1710) - some people looked at me funny, but I’d do it again in a second.
A crappy copy of the First Edition (third state) of Candide went way over range, but still only $600. Doesn’t Candide seem like one of those books that a first anything would start at $5000? Weird.
I bought two leaves from a 1488 edition of “The Golden Legend”. I’m usually against this sort of thing, but they were pretty great looking.
A copy of Isaac Ware’s A Complete Body of Architecture
that had apparently been dragged behind someone’s car went over range at $1200.
A set of Whitman’s in dirty linen jackets that were obscuring the fact that they were bound in pristine 1/4 blindstamped vellum, went too high for me as, apparently, someone else looked under the jackets as well.
Finally, a dual language Welsh/Latin - in parallel - of a book by William Wotton (a language scholar mocked by Swift in Battle of the Books) from 1730 went for $525 which was too much for me no matter how well it would have gone with my Scots book.
As soon as Brian gets back from the Near East we’ll Pazzo TV some of these.
