- PBA Galleries will sell Americana, Cartography, and Travel & Exploration on 5 November. Highlights include the nine volumes of the fourth and fifth series of Peter Force's American Archives (1837-1848), including a flawed copy of the folding Declaration of Independence (est. $20,000-30,000); a clipped signature of Billy the Kid (est. $10,000-15,000); and some Lewis & Clarkiana.
- The annual Skinner Fine Books & Manuscripts sale catalog [PDF] is up; the auction will be held on Sunday 15 November at 11 a.m. in Boston. A bunch of autograph/manuscript items leads off the sale, including Lot 17 (a lock of the hair of John Brown, est. $5,000-7,000, picture on p. 11 of the catalog); Lots 40-41 (George Armstrong Custer letters, est. $5,000-7,000 and $8,000-10,000); Lot 96 (a David Hume letter regarding Rousseau's letters to him, est. $10,000-15,000); Lot 131 (a fantastic Martin Luther letter, est. $15,000-25,000); Lot 151 (an Isaac Newton manuscript on ancient European history, est. 10,000-15,000); Lot 184 (a Peter Stuyvesant letter, est. $20,000-30,000); Lot 187 (two manuscript pages of Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, est. $4,000-6,000).
The high spot of this section is expected to be Lot 179, a large collection of material relating to Albert Schweitzer (est. $35,000-55,000).
Among the books, highlights include Lot 252 (Barton's 1817 Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States, a presentation copy to Commodore William Bainbridge, est. $6,000-8,000); Lots 276-295 (a number of Conrad titles, including several signed/inscribed copies); Lot 331 (a set of early printings of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland works, bound uniformly, est. $3,500-4,500); Lot 359 (a five-volume set of Gould's Birds of Great Britain, est. $60,000-80,000); Lot 363 (a book from the library of Nathaniel Hawthorne, est. $2,000-3,000); and Lot 397A (a first English edition of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, est. $20,000-30,000).
A copy of my very favorite of Audubon's Birds, the Carolina Parakeet, will be Lot 575 (est. $25,000-35,000). Other interesting things in the final section include Lot 601 (a 1574 Sebastian Munster world atlas, est. $10,000-12,000) and Lot 602 (a 1705 Visscher atlas, est. $10,000-15,000); and Lot 617 (a famous and excellent 1755 map of North America, est. $15,000-20,000).
