Sorry for the delay in these notices.
At the Swann sale of Printed and Manuscript Americana, held on 17 September (noted here), most of the lots sold, with many coming in at or near the estimates. The McKenney and Hall made $14,400; the Massachusetts psalter fragment sold for $1,020; the Aitken Bible fetched $43,200 and the c. 1682 Bay Psalm Book sold for $57,600. Perhaps the surprise of the sale was Lot 107, a 1762 Boston imprint of Thomas Chapman's The Cyder-Makers Instructor. It was estimated at $500-750, and sold for a whopping $26,400! I bet the JCB was pleased as punch with that result!
The Howard Hughes archive did not sell.
Also on 17 September, PBA sold Fine Books & Manuscripts (noted here). Full results are here. They had a rather lower sell-through rate, and none of the expected highlights sold. The high spot, at $6,000 was a 15th-century manuscript breviary.
Bloomsbury London's 17-18 September sale of Travel, Natural History, Polar Maps & Atlases (also noted here) saw about 525 of 800 lots sell, with Lot 628 (an Edward Lear plate-book) as the high seller at 10,000 GBP.
On 8 October, PBA Galleries will sell 350 lots from the library of the late Donald R. Fleming of Orinda, California, proprietor of the Press of the Golden Key. Much fine printing here, if that's your game.
