BCD library sale - 8 hours, some great pieces and some nosebleeding prices!

[Deinomenid]

An extraordinary event. So many fascinating books, many incredibly rare.  Some of the more recent/less rare served as useful reminder to me of their existence (and availability at rather lower prices on abebooks etc where I therefore had a busy afternoon too!). I must admit I struggled to  price quite a few of them, as did the "estimates".

I picked up a few wonderful ones, so  I absolutely cannot complain,  including one owned by a 17th century antiquarian after whom one of the older of my college's history societies (aka dining & drinking clubs) was named and - no doubt falsely - claimed direct lineage from. As I had the honour to preside over it "back in the day" it was all the better! Anyway this is how I'm rationalising the cost.

This one in particular  amazed me. I am sure  there's a good reason for the final cost (owners and author of course are of great renown) but a $300 estimate going for  north of $20,000...

 

 

Edited February 18 by Deinomenid
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[rNumis]

I picked up a couple of things I needed. Nothing too crazy. The Sartiges collection would have been nice but went too high. Prices looked pretty strong generally. 

That said, I saw the big BMC set didn't sell...$5000 opening bid drew no interest.  They let that sit open-for-bidding for a very long time before issuing fair warning. Understandable given they'd collect a 20% commission. Was that expensive for a BMC set? I don't really keep track of those. 

[DonnaML]

3 hours ago, rNumis said:

I picked up a couple of things I needed. Nothing too crazy. The Sartiges collection would have been nice but went too high. Prices looked pretty strong generally. 

That said, I saw the big BMC set didn't sell...$5000 opening bid drew no interest.  They let that sit open-for-bidding for a very long time before issuing fair warning. Understandable given they'd collect a 20% commission. Was that expensive for a BMC set? I don't really keep track of those. 

I think I've seen sets in varying condition, mixing originals and reprints, for quite a bit less. $5,000 is a lot of money to pay for a set of volumes that are all available online. The only one I own in hard copy is Vol. 16 on the coins of Roman Alexandria, simply because I consult it so often.

[Deinomenid]

The large bound series of BM Greek was sold for way less at $1,000 and I agree that $5k seemed high. I assume they were going for a big pickup over “market” for the BCD provenance either by memory or by that plus the the distinctive leather on some as a future marker of provenance.

For standard works though that seems odd. Eg the fairly recent PhD thesis on Corinth discussed over on the Greek forum recently is freely available but sold for a lot. Cambridge makes the Philip Kinns thesis (copy also sold yesterday for $$$) a pain to access but not the former.

I’d love to know why that Delphi book was so valuable to 2 bidders! 

[Rand]

I imagine original bound copies of a PhD thesis would be very rare, likely personal copies of the author or supervisors, perhaps with the author's signature. The author may be personally known to the buyer. Otherwise, PhDs are now freely available from university repositories.

[rNumis]

11 minutes ago, Rand said:

I imagine original bound copies of a PhD thesis would be very rare, likely personal copies of the author or supervisors, perhaps with the author's signature. The author may be personally known to the buyer. Otherwise, PhDs are now freely available from university repositories.

They can have mine for that kind of money. Signature thrown in. It's taking up valuable shelf space 😄

[Rand]

1 minute ago, rNumis said:

They can have mine for that kind of money. Signature thrown in. It's taking up valuable shelf space 😄

I am sure this will be a good investment. Future bidders will fight for it.

[DonnaML]

24 minutes ago, rNumis said:

They can have mine for that kind of money. Signature thrown in. It's taking up valuable shelf space 😄

Put it on ebay for $100,000 and see if anyone bites. You never know!

[rNumis]

4 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

Put it on ebay for $100,000 and see if anyone bites. You never know!

I'll let you know how that goes ☺️

[AnYangMan]

Should anyone here have bought lot 228 by any chance, I would love to know!

[rNumis]

Not me, but here's the link for anyone curious...

Ancient Architecture on Classical Coins | Kolbe & Fanning (numislit.com)

[Deinomenid]

18 hours ago, Rand said:

Otherwise, PhDs are now freely available from university repositories.

Is this definitely so? I really hope so as I've struggled several  times to access them. @rNumiss there a general academic rule of thumb about access?

For example  I couldn't access the Kinns one at Cambridge a while ago. STUDIES IN THE COINAGE OF IONIA: ERYTHRAE, TEOS, LEBEDUS, COLOPHON, C. 400–30 B.C. Cambridge: A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Ph.D. in the University of Cambridge, August 1980

Ironically that  too sold at  BCD, for ~$2k. I kept getting  please ask for special permission, this thesis is locked, and then nothing back. I'll try again, as it was slightly annoying especially given  how Cambridge is partly taxpayer-funded.

https://www.biddr.com/auctions/kolbefanning/browse?a=4277&l=5056664

 

 

[Deinomenid]

This thesis is not available on this repository until the author agrees to make it public. If you are the author of this thesis and would like to make your work openly available, please contact us: thesis@repository.cam.ac.uk.

Cambridge University Library can make a copy of this work available only for the purposes of private study and non-commercial research. Copies should not be shared or saved in any shared facilities. Copyright over the content of these works is with their authors. Theses from the Library collection are considered unpublished works and according to UK legislation quoting from them is not allowed without permission from their author.

If you can commit to these terms, please complete the request form which you can find through this link: https://imagingservices.lib.cam.ac.uk/

Trying again!

 

 

[Rand]

27 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

Is this definitely so?

Typically UK universities have a requirement for all doctoral theses to be submitted electronically. The thesis is then available open access through university repository and the British Library's EthOS repository. I expect, there would be embargo clauses, but cannot see a reason for secrecy in the field of our hobby.

https://bl.iro.bl.uk

 

PS. 1980 thesis might be considered prehistoric/ancient.

Edited February 19 by Rand

[rNumis]

1 hour ago, Deinomenid said:

@rNumiss there a general academic rule of thumb about access?

I honestly don't how it works. Mine was submitted here in the US, 30+ years ago. One of the three bound copies went off to a repository somewhere and that's the last I heard of it. The University library got a copy, as did I. 

[Deinomenid]

22 hours ago, Rand said:

I expect, there would be embargo clauses

Rand, thank you for advice/encouragement to persist. The thesis (first-rate as expected) is  in my inbox now. Re embargo there  were a few forms to  fill out, promises  not to share and a suggestion  - which quickly  passed - of a need for a credit card. But that was all.

And free was a  lot cheaper than the one that sold  on Saturday!