Here's how the October auctions shaped up:
- Results for the 4 October Bloomsbury Red China, 1921-1976 sale are here.
- The top seller at Bloomsbury's Bibliophile Sale on 5 October was something of a surprise. Two copies of Siebe, Gorman & Co.'s Illustrated Catalogue of Diving Apparatus, Diving Bells, ... (from ~1898 and ~1908) sold for £2,300; they'd been estimated at £150-200. Full results here.
- Christie's London sold Travel, Science, and Natural History on 9 October, in 341 lots. The thermometer signed by Fahreinheit was, as expected, the top lot, at £67,250. But it shared the podium with a collection of letters from a member of the British Antarctic Expedition to his mother. An Enigma machine fetched £58,850. The total for the sale was £1,269,412.
- At Bonhams San Francisco Fine Books and Manuscripts sale on 10 October, a copy of the eight-volume Watson and Kaye photographic collection The People of India (1868-1875) sold for $80,500. The typescript of an unpublished Timothy Leary work did not sell.
- Andy Warhol carried the day at Swann Galleries' 11 October Art, Press and Illustrated Books sale. A copy of his 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy sold for $52,800.
- Results for PBA Galleries 11 October sale of Fine Literature, Americana Bibliography, and Fine Books in All Fields are here. Two lots sold for $3,300: a mixed set of the Encyclopedie and a signed copy of Bukowski's At Terror Street and Agony Way.
- Bloomsbury sold Literature, Manuscripts, Travel and Natural History Books on 18 October. The top lot was a 1733 John Pine engraving of the Magna Carta, which sold for £19,000. Full results here.
- It was quite a day at Swann Galleries on 23 October for their sale of Aldine Imprints & Early Printed Books from the Library of Kenneth Rapoport, in 119 lots. Almost all of the lots sold, with three fetching more than $40,000: a copy of the 1525 Galen ($48,000); the 1513 Plato ($45,600); and the 1517 Musaeus and Orpheus ($43,200).
- Sotheby's sold items from the estate of Robert S. McNamara on 23 October, for a total of $1,008,571.
- Also some hefty prices at Bloomsbury's Modern First Editions: The Collection of Clive Hirschhorn sale on 25 October. A first edition of The Great Gatsby was the top lot, at £50,000.
- On 25 October PBA Galleries sold California & Its Ranchos: The John C. Broome Library. Results are here.
- Christie's Paris sold Emilie du Chatelet manuscripts and books on 29 October, for a total of €3,289,875. The partial manuscript of her translation of Newton's Principia did even better than anticipated, selling for €961,000.
- Also at Christie's Paris on 29 October, Importants Livres Anciens, Livres D'Artistes et Manuscrits, which brought €1,314,225. The top lot sold for €481,000. Redouté's Les Roses failed to sell.
- On 30 October at Christie's London The Le Vivier Library of Sporting Books and Modern First Editions brought in £734,087. Wynken de Worde's 1518 The boke of hawkyinge and Huntynge and fysshynge bettered presale estimates and fetched £193,250.
- At Christie's Paris on 30 October, Collection d'un Amateur Bibliophile sold for a total of €1,914,550. A first edition of Proust's Á l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (1920) sold for €145,000. A copy of John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) fetched €115,000
