Archive: Business & Technology

National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, March 18th auction featuring broad range of rare antique books, as well as pleasing ephemera, coins and currency, and artwork.  Of particular note were rare first editions of early and modern titles, many of which were signed. This 357-lot auction also featured two impressive personal collections, one containing nautical history titles and the other anthropological and archaeological works.

Giovanni Boccaccio’s “Le Decameron de Jean Boccace” brought a hammer price of $1291.50 (including buyer’s premium). This complete five-volume set was published in the years 1757-1761. It is illustrated with five engraved title pages, portrait, and 126 engraved plates, some of which were illustrated by Hubert-François Bourguignon, commonly known as Gravelot. The “Boccace de Gravelot” is one of the landmarks of eighteenth-century French illustration, with its delightful engravings, printed on a luxurious thick paper. This handsome set is bound in full leather with raised bands and gilt decorative designs.


Realizing a hammer price of $1200.00 (including buyer’s premium) was a large antique framed map of the Holy Land. This map, titled "A New Map of the Land of Promise and the Holy City of Jerusalem. Describing the Most Important Events in the Old and New Testament” was published in 1823 by Tho. Duffield of Philadelphia. This grand panoramic map contains numerous illustrations, giving both an indication of the location of the various cities, towns, and landmarks, as well as populating the lands depicted with vignettes that illustrate passages from the Bible.

A group of antique ledgers and diaries dated as early as the 1860’s sold for $861.00 (including buyer’s premium). This group included a physician's memorandum for 1917 and assessment rolls from the town of Butternuts for the beginning of the twentieth century.

Bringing a hammer price of $799.50 (including buyer’s premium) was a rare first edition of President Barack Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” This memoir was written by Obama while he was law professor at the University of Chicago. The autobiographical narrative tells the story of the life of Obama up to his entry to Harvard Law School. It was first published as he was preparing to launch his political career.

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