Ansel Adams Photos, Rare Printed Constitution, Aldines: Auction Preview

Here are the sales I'll be watching this week:

At New England Book Auctions on Tuesday, October 15, 200 lots of Erotica & Gay, Witchcraft, Literature, Illustrated, etc., including a number of Arthur Rackham illustrated works and seven albums of photographs and memorabilia from the San Francisco drag scene in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Sotheby's New York's sale on Wednesday, October 16 is Ansel Adams: A Legacy | Photographs from the Meredith Collection, in 96 lots. These photos were given by Adams to the nonprofit group The Friends of Photography; when that organization was dissolved the photographs were acquired in 2002 by Tom and Lynn Meredith. Rating the top estimate is the five-photo Surf Sequence, San Mato County Coast, California (1940; printed 1981/1982), expected to sell for $200,000–300,000. Aspens, Northern New Mexico (1958, printed 1970s) and Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941, printed between 1973 and 1977) are each expected to sell for $150,000–200,000.

At Sotheby's New York on Thursday, October 17, 122 lots of Photographs, including Robert Frank's Pablo Mary and Andrea in Texas (U.S. 90, En Route to Del Rio, Texas), expected to sell for $200,000–300,000. A complete run of Camera Work (1864–1946) is estimated at $120,000–180,000.

Brunk Auctions holds their rescheduled sale of The United States Constitution and Related Documents on Thursday: the nine lots include the only privately-held copy of the September 28, 1787 edition of the Constitution, signed by Charles Thomson as secretary of the Confederation Congress. This and other documents in the sale were found in a filing cabinet at the Hayes Farm in Edenton, North Carolina in 2022. A copy of the July 12, 1776 edition of the proposed Articles of Confederation, believed to have been that belonging to Joseph Hewes, is expected to sell for $100,000–200,000.

At PBA Galleries on Thursday, 488 lots of Fine Literature – Science Fiction, Fantasy & Mysteries – Brautigan, Bukowski, and the Beats. A 1955 London edition of The Old Man and the Sea, inscribed by Hemingway to film director Fred Zinneman, with some related ephemera, shares the top estimate of 10,000–15,000 with a hand-colored poster for the first concert by Family Dog, on October 16, 1965. A complete set of the psychedelic newspaper the San Francisco Oracle from 1966–1968 is estimated at $5,000–8,000.

Rounding out the week on Friday, October 18 at Sotheby's New York, the next installment of the Bibliotheca Brookeriana sale, this The Aldine Collection D–M, in 333 lots. The second edition of the Aldine Demosthenes (1520s) in a contemporary Italian alla greca binding is expected to lead the sale at $150,000–250,000. The first Aldine edition of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (after 31 October 1504), one of just a handful of sets printed on vellum, could sell for $140,000–180,000.