ABAA-members George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler were featured on CBS Sunday Morning this past weekend. The booksellers belief is that they may have identified Shakespeare's personal copy of John Baret's Alvearie; or Quadruple Dictionarie, and they have published a book detailing their exhaustive investigation. We previously wrote about Koppelman and Wechsler's ground-breaking work in 2014... [more CBS News: Shakespeare’s Beehive]

Hailed as "the sports equivalent of the Emancipation Proclamation," one of the original contracts Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers has been authenticated by ABAA member John Reznikoff (University Archives) and appraised at $36 million by ABAA member Seth Kaller (Seth Kaller, Inc.). Owned by businessman Mykalai Kontilai, the contracts will go on display at the Collectors Café in New York City next week. ESPN reported on the contact this week, quoting Reznikoff: "It passed all the tests with flying colors, everything that I looked at," Reznikoff said this week. "There's a lot of components to a document. There's ink, paper, printing, and everything was consistent." "I'm 110 percent sure" it's real, Reznikoff said. and Kaller: "Their effect on American history, and even the world, transcends the bounds of sports," Kaller wro... [more Jackie Robinson’s Original Contracts Authenticated]

The ABAA, in partnership with The Library of Congress, the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies, and the Grolier Club, is currently accepting entries for the 2017 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. The contest aims to encourage young collectors to become accomplished bibliophiles. We are honored to once again have support from the Jay I. Kislak Foundation, the generous underwriter of prizes for this contest. Collegiate Book Collecting Contest winners, and interested students whose institutions do not offer contests, can submit entries at apply.abaa.org. All entries for the 2017 competition must be submitted by May 31, 2017. For more information on the contest, please visit contest.abaa.org. If you have any further questions, please contact hq@abaa.org. Need some inspiration or ideas? Meet Previous National Collegiate Bo... [more 2017 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest]

ABAA members will be bringing their best items to the 56th annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair during the second week of April, 2016. Below, we have a few highlights from our members (in no particular order): exceedingly rare books, unique records, and one-of-a-kind ephemera to give a brief flavor of the treasures that await discovery in New York. Members submitted so many featured items that we've had to split the list into two parts. Tune in next week for another sneak-peak at items you'll find at this year's New York Antiquarian Book Fair. (For more details on the book fair, click here...) BODMER, Karl (1809-1893, illustrator) -- Prince Maximilian zu WIED-NEUWIED (1782-1867). Voyage dans l'Intérieur de l'Amérique du Nord execute pendant les années 1832, 1833 et 1834. Paris: Chez Arthus Bertrand, 1840-1843. 4 volumes (text: 3 volum... [more Featured Items: New York Book Fair (Part 1)]

The pinnacle of rare book fairs in the US is the annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair, which takes place from April 7-10 at the Park Avenue Armory. Collectors can browse the booths of over 200 rare book dealers from around the world and all across the United States, offering a vast selection of rare books, maps, manuscripts, illuminated manuscripts, and ephemera. This book fair is officially sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and our parent organization the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, which means that collectors can be confident in the authenticity of the items available for purchase. (Scroll down for a few examples of the items that will be available this year.) Hours Preview: Thursday, April 7, 5-9pm Fair: Friday, April 8, noon-8pm Saturday, April 9, noon-7pm Sunday, April 10, noon-5pm... [more Get Ready for the New York Book Fair]

Happy Leap Day! We thought you might want something to read on this bonus day, so here's a roundup of the latest news from the rare books world. New Penguins Collectors of Penguin Classics -- and we're nearly all de facto collectors of Penguin Classics by the time we've graduated college -- will be excited to see the launch of a new series of "Pocket Penguins," new editions of the most-widely read Penguin Classics. Color-coded by original language, the new series adapts the iconic Penguin Classics color-scheme and design, and will appeal to book-design afficionados. Unpublished Beatrix Potter Story Found Fear not fans of children's books featuring anthropomorphized animals, a lost story by Beatrix Potter, "The Tale Of Kitty-in-Boots" has been found in the Potter archives, and will be published in the fall. New Tolkien Poems Found Tolkien ... [more Rare Book News]

Recently, I became hooked on a video game for the first time since I was a teenager in the early days of home computers. While my children checked Instagram in the evenings, I would fire up Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes on my phone. After my wife began to tease me for becoming as much a phone slave as the kids, I began to think about why this game interested me so much. And then it hit me, it's the digital equivalent of my major collecting interest: vintage Star Wars toys. I've collected Star Wars figures since the late 1970s, when I could actually achieve the collector's ideal: owning a complete set of all the figures in existence. The toy industry quickly moved such aspirations far, far beyond my financial means, but I never fully gave up collecting Star Wars figures even as other interests and obsessions came and went. Today, I have an a... [more Why Do We Collect?]

Dr. Samuel J. Hessel died last September of pancreatic cancer. A radiologist by training, he gradually turned an interest in rare books into a second career as an antiquarian book dealer after his retirement from the medical profession in the mid-1990s. He later served on the ABAA board of directors as treasurer. Several ABAA members offered remembrances of Samuel Hessel: Michael Thompson writes: Dear fellow booksellers and all friends of Sam Hessel, I feel that I must write a letter, but it is too hard. I still hurt too much. I am envious of the ability of the writers of so many letters; They describe Sam so perfectly and give him so much praise and tribute that I can't imagine doing better. I too knew Sam for many years, practically from the beginning of his partnership with Jim Manwarren. Not traveling to Phoenix all that much, most of... [more In Memoriam: Dr. Samuel J. Hessel, 1945-2015]

On Black Friday, I got an email from Barnes & Noble trumpeting their (discounted) signed books! The most notable thing about the email -- besides their rather dubious claim to have the greatest selection of signed books “in the world” 1 -- was that this was their primary marketing message, the pitch they were pinning their financial hopes on: signed books were going to make their Black Friday a success. This email highlighted for me something that I've noticed growing over the past few years: a new emphasis on signed books, a new belief in the value of an author's signature. To put this in context, six years ago I worked for a small publisher and spent my time calling on bookstores trying to get them excited about our books. Occasionally, we would have a novel with breakout potential, and an additional challenge would then be to get i... [more First Edition Clubs]

Two ABAA members have received presigious awards recently. At the 73rd World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention during the Hugo Awards Ceremony, David Aronovitz of The Fine Books Company was awarded the very prestigious "San Moskowitz Archive Award.” It is a Lifetime Achievement Award given to excellence in amassing a world class collection and publishing books which emanate from the collection. Arongvitz has published 19 books to date and is the 14th person to be given this award. For an example of his collection, see this hand-corrected manuscript of Robert Heinlein's novel Friday, which he recently listed. Bob Fleck of Oak Knoll Books was awarded the ILAB Medal during the 2015 October Seville Presidents' Meeting “in recognition of services rendered to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers” over several decades o... [more Members Receiving Awards]