Frederick Douglass Photograph, Counterfeit Detector, Mao's Little Red Book: Auction Preview

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

At Chiswick Auctions on Tuesday, February 27, 251 lots of Books & Works on Paper, including a late-seventeenth-century manuscript map of Bermondsey on vellum estimated at £3,000–5,000. A deluxe copy of Francis Carco's Quelques-Unes (1931) with illustrations by Louis Legrand is expected to sell for £3,000–4,000, and a twelfth-century manuscript leaf with an illumination of St. James could fetch £2,500–3,500. An interesting and wide-ranging sale, so do have a look through the catalogue.

Freeman's | Hindman sells 328 lots of American Historical Ephemera and Photography, Featuring African Americana on Tuesday. Doris Ullman's photographic studies for Roll, Jordan, Roll (1933) rate the top estimate at $8,000–10,000. A Reconstruction-era broadside for a Democratic candidate for state office in New Jersey is expected to sell for $7,000–9,000, and a carte de visite photograph of Frederick Douglass from about 1867 could fetch $2,000–3,000.

At New England Book Auctions on Tuesday, Early Printing, Architecture, Printing & Typography. The 217 lots include a very rare copy of the 1869 publication The American Bond Detector; an incomplete copy of an eighteenth-century Dutch type specimen book; and a copy of the 1992 portfolio Ornamental Types, with type specimens from the foundry of Louis John Pouchée.

On Thursday, February 29, Forum Auctions sells Books and Works on Paper, in 298 lots. The 1505 Aldine edition of Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica rates the top estimate at £2,500–3,500. A chromogenic print of William Anders' 1968 photograph Earthrise could sell for £1,500–2,500. Lots 115–130 in this sale are focused on the Foulis Press.

Swann Galleries sells 340 lots of Vintage Posters & Graphic Design on Thursday, including a signed and numbered copy of Toulouse-Lautrec's L'estampe originale (1893) and Akseli Gallen-Kallela's 1907 Bil - Bol poster; these share the top estimate at $40,000–60,000.

At Chiswick Auctions on Thursday, 203 lots from Justin Schiller's collection relating to the Cultural Revolution and the Maoist Movement, including a very rare August 1963 prototype version of the Quotations of Chairman Mao (£30,000–35,000); an album of Mao-related images including a signed photograph of Mao is estimated at £20,000–30,000. Many more editions of the Quotations and much other material will also be sold.