Latest News Articles by Ian McKay
British and Irish book auctions, June 14-26, 2022
13 June 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
Declaration before the declaration
13 June 2022“Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve all Connection between Great Britain, and the American Colonies; and to declare them free and independent States…”
Frankenstein first now in second place
06 June 2022Just one other example of Mary Shelley’s famous tale has made more at auction
British and Irish book auctions: June 7-18, 2022
06 June 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
San Frantastic views sold locally
06 June 2022Maps and views of San Francisco were among the principal attractions of an April 21 sale held by local auction house PBA Galleries (25/20% buyer’s premium) to disperse the first portion of the Charles Fraccia Collection.
The progress of Bunyan’s work
30 May 2022Copy printed in Boston in 1744 and now offered in Chicago was defective but a real rarity
Great price for edition inscribed by F Scott Fitzgerald
30 May 2022An inscribed copy of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Great Gatsby' was the most expensive purchase in a held by Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium).
‘Shuttlecock’ was a hit for children’s literature printer
30 May 2022A children’s book estimated at £20-40 in a May 14 sale held by Pippa Deeley (15% buyer’s premium) in Bodiam, East Sussex, was sold instead at £2200.
British and Irish book auctions: May 31-June 18, 2022
30 May 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
‘With the love of Mark Twain’
23 May 2022Work sold in Cambridge is thought to reflect US author's friendship with Scottish physician and essayist
Dickens work inscribed for Carlyle
23 May 2022More than 60 Dickens lots appeared in an April 26 sale of the library of Jeremy and Penny Martin, several of them bearing presentation inscriptions.
Potter proof set uncovered
23 May 2022A London saleroom offered what was billed as the only “known” surviving set of uncorrected galley proofs for Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone.
Map of Antigua sails to over 20-times estimate
23 May 2022Estimated at just $200-300, this folding map of the island of Antigua proved rather more expensive than expected.
British and Irish book auctions: May 24-June 1
23 May 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
British and Irish book auctions: May 17-26, 2022
16 May 2022Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.
International hammer highlights: Manuscript strikes gold in New York
16 May 2022Alchemical work is best-seller as Vishniac lots create a valuable mix in the saleroom
Chicago saleroom hits an all-time high for results
16 May 2022In what was the auction house’s most successful sale ever in financial terms, and one that boasted a 97% selling rate, a March 4 sale at Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) was led at $65,000 (£49,240) by a 'Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity from the Time of his Being Taken by the British, near Montreal… in 1775, to the Time of his Exchange…in May 1778'.
Questions of land and power in the early days of the US
16 May 2022An historically significant document dating from 1785 and a previously unrecorded campaign handbill concerning the election that saw Thomas Jefferson become the third US president were highlights of a February 17 sale at Freeman’s (26/20/12% buyer’s premium).
Library of a fruitful thinker on agriculture
16 May 2022Works offered in Essex saleroom belonged to ‘capable, colourful and forceful’ professor
Koppitz dancers show the right moves
09 May 2022'Bewegungsstudie', or ‘Study of Movement’, by Rudolf Koppitz, is the most famous of six tipped-in photogravures, each with a protective glassine sheet, that make up Pictures from the Tyng Collection, a 1931 publication of the Royal Photographic Society.