Saturday, April 26, 2008

Auction Report

- Christie's South Kensington had a Landmarks of Science and Medicine sale (5542) on 23 April. Rare Book Review notes that some of the lots were from the collection of Swedish collector Andras Gedeon. The high spot was a copy of Pierre Borel's 1655-56 treatise on telescopes and microscopes, which made almost $44,000. Works by Newton and Huygens also sold well. A 1974 offprint from IEEE Transactions on Communications, "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunications," signed by the authors (Cerf and Kahn), fetched $21,000: this article is considered the foundational text of the Internet.

- Earlier in the day (23 April) Christie's had a general Travel, Science & Natural History sale (5428). The top-selling printed item was a collection of 101 John Gould plates (mostly hummingbirds), which fetched just over $32,000. A set of James Cook's voyage accounts made $23,000.

Christie's has a new, Flash-based website, which is delightful when it works but a pain when it won't load on older computers.

- Swann Galleries held a Literature, Art and Illustrated books sale on 24 April, but nothing seemed to generate much interest. Their next book sale (Printed & Manuscript Americana) will be held on 5 June.

- Sotheby's London will hold a sale of Natural History, Travel, Atlases and Maps on 8 May.