Thanks to everyone that supported our August auction. It was a huge success and a fun day, with many happy buyers and vendors. The highlight of the sale was a 16th Century Illuminated Manuscript Antiphonal that sold for $13,200, along with a monastic prayer book for $3,100 and another velum manuscript for $3,600. These are very unique in an Australian market and the subsequent result reflected the popularity of such items.
Other great sales included a copy of Forster Voyage Round the World with Cook, which sold for $2,600, and a signed first edition of Banjo Patterson’s Man From Snowy River with a tipped in letter by Banjo that reached $3,800. There was also a Banjo Patterson scrapbook that contained a letter from Banjo. This sold for $600. The antiquarian collection was hugely popular and included an 18th century hand written book on mining that sold for $2,000 and a 1619 Elements of Euclid that reached $700.
Our next auction will be on September 14th and features an amazing collection of Polar exploration titles, with many signed and first editions books on Antarctic and Arctic exploration.
The next Sydney Rare Book Auctions sale features a huge collection of antiquarian titles. It’s very rare to find such a large volume of quality, vellum bound volumes available on the market. The collection came from a European immigrant who brought his library with him to Australia in the 1950’s. Many of the books came from a monastery in the Pamplona area of Spain and are of a religious theme. There are also some fabulous early medical, botanical and architecture titles.
Also of note in the antiquarian collection is a 1568 Thomas Aquinas Summa in original limp vellum, as well as a 1790 Commentary on the Thomas Aquinas Summa in three large volumes. There is also a 1691 book on sundial construction that contains numerous illustrations, plus a 1619 Elements of Euclid. This early edition of one of the foundation books of modern mathematics is bound in full limp vellum and contains numerous geometrical drawings.
This is but a few of what’s on offer, with many fantastic medical and architecture books yet to be catalogued. In all there will be over 200 lots of antiquarian books on offer in our August 10th sale.