Author: admin

The May 25^th sale included our usual varied collection of material, ranging from early maps and protest posters, to antiquarian books and modern firsts. The sale room was full, as well as a huge number of online bidders actively clicking the ‘Bid Now’ button on Invaluable. It made for a fast auction, with over 700 lots going under the hammer in around 4 hours.

Highlights from the sale included ‘A Mother’s Offering to her Children’ first edition, which sold for $15,000, ‘My Brilliant Career’ first edition ($2,500), ‘1790 Surgeon General White First Fleet Journal’ ($3,000) and a set of ‘Art in Australia’ ($2,500). There were also some rather interesting items that sold well, such as a Peace Loan poster that reached $525, a pamphlet titled ‘Bookplates Becoming Popular’ by P Neville Barnett ($350) and a small collection of late 1800’s photos of Flinders Island ($550).

The sale achieved a clearance rate of approximately 85%, with many unsold lots being traded in the hours that followed. The buyers were predominantly from Australia, however about 20% of sales went to international bidders from across the globe, including the US, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, China and England. The above observations indicates that the market for rare and antique books, maps and ephemera is quite strong.

Our next sale is scheduled for late June, and our intention is to increase the numbers of auctions we hold in the year ahead.

 

Included in our February 2^nd sale are books from the collection of barrister and former Wallaby, Peter Crittle AO.

Peter played 15 Tests for Australia between 1962 and 1967 and from 1993-99 was president of the New South Wales Rugby Union. He had been vice-president of the Australian Rugby Union since 1994. He was elected president of the Australian Rugby Union in 2001 and served in that role until 2005 when he stood down at the end of his term. In the same year he was awarded the Vernon Pugh Award for distinguished service at the annual International Rugby Board Awards ceremony in Paris. In 2004 Peter was honoured as an officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Besides his time as a player and administrator, Crittle is also well known as an avid Rugby historian and also provided support to members of the Forbes Rugby Club following the Bali bombings in 2002.

Within Peter’s book collection is a variety of material that reflected his interests outside of Rugby. This includes a large selection of titles relating to African exploration. Many are first editions and in lovely bindings. There are books from the estate of Dorothea Mackellar, containing her bookplate, as well as antiquarian titles, Australiana, beautiful old atlases and fine bindings.