A BOOK SALE REPORTED

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27860, 7 January 1956, Page 5

A BOOK SALE REPORTED

VALUES OF N.Z. BOOKS INCREASE

[Specially written for “The Press” by W. C. COMBER]

A three-day auction sale of books such as the one held recently in Wellington is a big sale even for so experienced a firm in the business as G. H. Bethune and Co. Their 243rd catalogue contained 2380 items, many of them carefully described for date, edition and condition. Almost 2000 of these were of New Zealand or Pacific interest, and there appeared to be no lack of money available for rarities. A solid core of between 30 and 40 buyers faced the genial auctioneer, with as many more taking a casual interest. Booksellers and librarians were in the majority, especially in the front row. with a sprinkling of private buyers whose bids were, in most cases speedily eclipsed by the professionals. When it came to the scarcer items the auctioneer had to keep a wary eye not only on pens and pencils raised before him, but also on the list of postal bids noted alongside the item in the catalogue. Besides the names of New Zealand booksellers called on the fall of the hammer, or rather the butt of a pencil, the names of Australian and English houses were noted as buyers. The Turnbull Library was out in force, but obviously buying for other libraries; the Canterbury and Wellington Public Libraries added to their stocks; the New Plymouth Public Library filled some of the gaps in its collection of the Reports of the New Zealand Company. Canterbury College library bought strongly with an occasional bid from Otago University, but Victoria College Library faded out after the first day. its main purchase being a nice set of Dent’s Medieval Towns. In 1936 Mr Johannes Andersen, late librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library published an interesting little book entitled “The Lure of New Zealand Book Collecting,’’ in which he forecast a steep rise in values. At the end of his book he set down what he considered to be current values but it is not likely he would have guessed such rapid rises as have taken place in 20 years. Take for example the 1847 G. F. Angas which he valued at £4s—it made nearly twice that figure for a not perfect copy at this sale. It came out originally in 10 parts at a guinea a time though it is scarcely ever seen in the unbound parts. Or take the two supplementary volumes to Buller’s “History of New Zealand Birds” which were reckoned to be worth £9 9s in 1936, but sold the other day for £l9 2s 6d. Cowan’s two volumes on “New Zealand Wars of the Pioneering Period" only recently out of print from the Government Printer at £2 2s, made £5. Dieffenbach’s “Travels in New Zealand” published in 1843 was valued by Mr Andersen at £4 10s sold in May, 1944, for £4 5s but jumped to £6 15s two years later and fetched £ll at this sale. This is a fairly typical rise for this class of book and illustrates a steep rise which was observed towards the end of the second war. Book collectors among the American troops here during the war were to some extent responsible—they certainly cleared out the stocks in the hands of the Government Printer. Early editions of voyages are always in strong demand and when the shining leather of the old bookbinders’ vanished art is exhibited the ordinary buyer thrusts his hands firmly in his pockets. He isn’t searching for odd coins for no pocket would contain enough coins to buy them, he leaves the bidding to libraries and to wealthy investors. While some small editions might hover around the £lO mark, really fine and elaborate contemporary editions will go far beyond that figure. Take No. 1062 in this catalogue—“D’Urville. De M. J., Voyage de la Corvette L’Astrolabe, 1826-1829, 16 volumes, quarter leather, comprising Histoire de Voyage. 5 volumes, and Atlas Partie Historique. 2 volumes; Zoologie, 4 Volumes and Atlas, 2 volumes; Botanique, 1 volume; Entomolgique, and Atlas Botanique Entomogie. 1830-25.” To call Lot 1062 a bundle would be improper—the collection sold for £75. But even this was not as high a figure at Lot 1006 reached, 8 volumes comprising Captain Cook’s first voyage, 3 volumes 1773, 2 volumes, second voyage, 1777 and 3 volumes, Third voyage 1784. All were full leather with spine covers rebound, first editions also two Atlases of Charts and Plates, one full leather trimmed, 10 volumes in all —they went for £92. The highest price for one lot was reached by a set of 245 parts of Journal of Polynesian Society from No. 1 issued in 1892 to 1953. This went to a Christchurch buyer for £ll2 10s. Leaving the investors with their gains the student of New Zealand history had the dazzling prospect of probably the widest selection of basic material on early New Zealand ever to be assembled in one catalogue. Nearly five columns of the catalogue comprising 87 separate lots of British Parliamentary papers in their blue bindings is a sight rarely seen outside the most exclusive library shelves The Turnbull Library and the University libraries got the bulk of them at not unreasonable prices considering the value and rarity. The dearest among these was the Report from the Select Committee on the Disposal of Lands in the British Colonies together with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. Printed in August, 1836. £l2 was the price. The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to inquire into the present state of the Islands of New Zealand. . . . 1838 made £B. Scarcely less important for the New Zealand historian, 19 lots of the Reports presented to the Directors of the Zealand Company from the Third Report presented in 1841. with some gaps to the Twenty-fifth Report presented May 31, 1849, met with fairly strong demands mostly from the libraries. Highest prices were paid for the voluminous 12th Report, known to students as “The Fat Book,” which went for £9 10s, while some of the slender volumes comprising the earlier reports sold for anything from about £1 upwards. A few items of collected newspaper material came in for spirited bidding. A bound volume of the "Taranaki Herald” from February 18, 1860, to July 12, 1862, was sold for £l9. That valuable digest of colonial news published in England as the Australia and New Zealand Gazette came up in four neat volumes bound in half calf and comprising Nos. 1 to 166. October 19, 1850. to December 30. 1854—they went to an Auckland booksellers for £lO. Some standard books on New Zealand history made surprising advances. Marais’s “Colonisation of New Zealand," which sold for 22s in 1947, went up to £2 12s 6d. Similarly, W. P. Morrell’s “Provincial System of Government in N.Z.”, which was selling at about a pound seven years ago, went up to £2 5s on this occasion.

A good many items of Canterbury interest appeared in this sale. The Canterbury Papers, which are very hard to come by, made £l3 for the 10 numbers of the first series bound in one volume, 1850, which was a price less than they might have been expected to reach. It is many years since the full 10 numbers came on the market. On the other hand, Fitzgerald’s “Selections from the Writings and Speeches of John Robert Godley,” published by “The Press” in 1863. showed a steep rise. I thought I was doing well to get a beautifully-bound copy about 10 years ago for 355, but

on this occasion a copy with ordinary binding went up to £4 10s. The Deans Letters also showed a sharp rise to £3 2s 6d. “Earliest Canterbury and Its Settlers,” published by Mr James Hay, of Pigeon Bay, 40 years ago. sold at £1 Ils for an autographed copy in July 1946, went to £2 12s 6d at this sale.

Many of the New Zealand Centennial Books published about 1940 are doing very well. The series published by the Department of Internal Affairs in 1940 are all out of print in the original editions, which sold at ss.