For the first time in its 43 year history, the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) have united to publish a joint catalogue containing nearly $1,000,000 of rare books, manuscripts and artworks for sale.
Access to reliable and relevant information is vital in a time of crisis. Many of our colleagues are concerned about the following weeks and months, have spend weeks re-organizing the business, were forced to lock up shops, send staff on leave or furlough or are simply in lockdown at home.
Events and fairs in the rare book world were cancelled or postponed all over the world. Now is the time to stand together as a worldwide trade.
AMOR LIBRORUM NOS UNIT - THE LOVE OF BOOKS UNITES US.
The Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (VAO) is delighted to announce that Murray G. Hall has been awarded the ILAB Patron of Honour for his outstanding contributions within the world of bibliophily and for his numerous studies in the history of the book and its provenances.
More than a year has passed since the discovery of thefts from the Girolamini Library in Naples (Italy). The former library director, Marino Massimo de Caro, has been convicted to seven years in prison of being primarily responsible for the thefts. He now is under arrest in his house in Italy. Meanwhile a second issue has been brought to public attention: the dissemination of forgeries throughout the international antiquarian book market. In several official statements the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) and the Italian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (ALAI) expressed their concern about these two major issues which bring up the prospect that books from the Girolamini Library or forgeries may surface on the market for years to come with little or no warning that they have been stolen or forged. A survey of press articles about the Girolamini thefts and the forgeries published between August 2013 and January 2014:
Pierre Coumans, Brussels bookseller and owner of Librairie Pierre Coumans, spoke to ILAB about organizing the next Salon du Mont des Arts. Since its inauguration in 2016, the number of exhibitors at the fair has grown to more than fifty European dealers and it provides book collectors and the book trade with the opportunity to enjoy an international book fair in the heart of the Belgian capital, a country with a rich and long history of printed works.
In 1813, British mathematician William Moore published Treatise on the Motion of Rockets, the first exposition of rocket mechanics based on Newton's Third Law of Motion. But it was not until the early 20th century that this literature really can be said to have properly begun. It has its roots in the work of three men: Hermann Oberth, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard. Each of these pioneers of astronautics appear to have independently developed similar theories about the possibility of rockets escaping earth's gravitational pull, and their earliest expositions of such theories are the core of any private library purporting to cover space travel.
The Jewish dentist Hans Sachs had collected over 8000 posters with historical advertisings before he fled from Nazi Germany to the United States. The Nazis confiscated the poster collection. It was rediscovered in a cellar in Eastern Berlin during the 1960s. 4200 posters from this collection were then given to the German Historical Museum. Now the museum must return the posters to the son of Hans Sachs. The Federal Court in Karlsruhe had concluded that the family of the collector always was and still is the rightful owner.
A collection of over 10,000 items that has been described as the greatest private library of Jewish books and manuscripts, has been acquired by the National Library of Israel. Collector Mr Jack V. Lunzer died in December last year in Britain and had always intended to sell the collection as a whole after 60 years of building this important library.
