Date: Fri 31-Jul-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Pacific

Full Text:

Pacific Book Auction Enjoys A Banner Month

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. -- Pacific Book Auction Galleries' recent June sales

featured a Ortelius' cartographic oeuvre Theatrum Orbis Terrarum on June 11.

This copy of the atlas, published in Antwerp in 1584, consists of 112

double-page hand-colored maps. It realized $138,000, twice the price fetched

in 1992, which sets a record for this atlas, according to the gallery.

Another highlight in the area of travel and exploration included a first

English edition of Lewis and Clark's Travel to the Source of the Missouri

River (London, 1814), which was bid to $4,888. In the fine and rare section of

the sale, a whimsical original watercolor and pencil drawing by Arthur

Rackham, possibly meant for a Grimm's fairy tale, was bid to $6,900.

A first edition of Kandinsky's manifesto on Modern art, Uber Das Geistige in

der Kunst (Munchen, 1912), fetched $2,875; and an offering of eight lots of

works in German by Albert Einstein included a lot containing Ueber die

thermodyamische Theorie..., 1902, featuring his second through fifth published

papers, which sold for $1,265, while his first published paper, "Folgerungen

aus den Capillaritatserscheinungen" (Liepzig, 1901) brought $1,092.

The gallery's June 16 and 17 sale of the golf library of Joseph S.F. Murdoch

attracted bidders to the floor from England, Scotland and all over the United

States.

Doug Johns, gallery president, observed that collecting golf books has

achieved a legitimacy it has not enjoyed in the past, when it seemed more a

part of the memorabilia market. The sale, coming a few days before the US Open

at San Francisco's Olympic Club, was topped by The Goff. An Heroi-Comical Poem

in Three Cantos..., by Thomas Mathison, (Edinburgh, 1793) the third and rarest

edition of the first book devoted entirely to golf. After a lengthy bidding

contest, it sold at a record-breaking price of $80,500 to Dick Donovan, noted

golf bibliographer and book dealer, acting for an anonymous client. This is

the highest price realized for a golf book to date, according to the gallery.

Another contest ensued over a third edition of George Carnegie's Golfiana, or

Niceties Connected with the Game of Golf (Edinburgh, 1842), a lyric book

inscribed by the author. It was bid to $31,625, far exceeding the presale high

estimate of $18,000. A scarce copy of The Duffers' Golf Club Papers by "Dr

Stone, A Member" (Montrose, 1891) came to rest at $18,400.

John Smart's A Round of the Links: Views of the Golf Greens of Scotland, with

20 etched plates by George Aikman (Edinburgh, 1893), fetched $17,250, while

another Aikman/ Smart collaboration, Pen and Pencil Sketches on the Game of

Golf (Edinburgh, 1888), brought $14,950. The Golfer's Year Book for 1866, a

list of all the Scottish golf clubs, also fetched $17,250. Two other works

sold at this price: A presentation copy of Robert Clark's Golf: A Royal &

Ancient Game, (London, 1875, but 1876), with a signed photo, and a first

edition of James Cundell's Rules of the Thistle Club, (Edinburgh, 1824), one

of only six books of printed rules published prior to 1830.

Historical Notes & Extracts Concerning the Links of St Andrews by David

Fleming (St Andrews, 1893), one of the two scarcest works on this club,

realized $11,500. A complete run of The Golfing Annual, 1888-1910, was

hammered down at $10,350, as was J.F. Irwin's Golf Sketches (London, 1892),

and Webster Glynes The Maiden. A Golfing Epic, (England, 1893), a small and

very rare volume.

A deluxe edition of The Royal & Ancient Game of Golf by Hilton and Smith,

(London, 1912), one of the most magnificent of golf books, was bid to $9,200,

and Historical Gossip About Golf and Golfers, by a Golfer, (Edinburgh, 1863),

brought $8,050, as did Horace Hutchinson's Aspects of Golf (Bristol, 1900),

which had a presale high estimate of $500, and a signed limited copy of Down

the Fairway by Robert Jones (New York, 1927).

Many other books sold between $5,000 and $7,000. The 1,200-lot sale realized a

total of $742,400 with 7 percent of all lots unsold.

The earliest surviving published photographic record of a major American city,

G.R. Fardon's San Francisco Album. Photographs of the most Beautiful Views and

Public Buildings of San Francisco, 1856, reached $178,250 in Pacific Book

Auctions Galleries' sale of fine Western Americana on June 25.

The book was jointly purchased by Jeffrey Fraenkel of the Fraenkel Gallery in

San Francisco and Hans P. Kraus, Jr, of New York City, a specialist in early

photography. This particular copy, which contains 32 salt prints of San

Francisco, was made for Jacob Gundlach, San Francisco brewer and Sonoma Valley

winemaker. This is one of the finest copies of the album ever seen, and it had

never left the Gundlach family.

For information, 415/989-2665.