Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
This year is now exception. Leading up to the fair new highlights will be added by our exhibitors every day. These are just a sample of the wide range of printed materials that will be available at the fair.
Please browse the highlights. They are all for sale. If you find something interesting, please contact the exhibitor, it might just be yours!
You can also browse the highlights by exhibitor by viewing the exhibitor's profile in the exhibitor directory
The Picture of Everest
$500
Gregory, Alfred. The Picture of Everest. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1954.
First US. 4to. original cream boards gilt in dustwrapper; pp. unpaginated, with numerous colour photos. A very good copy. [Neate G62]. Flatsigned on title page by the author, 'Alfred Gregory', first ascensionist 'Ed Hillary', and his son, 'Peter Hillary', also a notable mountaineer. Alf Gregory (Greg)(1913-2010) was an accomplished mountaineer and keen amateur photographer who took on the role of stills camera as part of his climbing duties on the successful 1953 Everest expedition.
L’Egypte et la Syrie, ou Mouers, Usages, Costumes et Monuments des Egyptiens, des Arabes, Et des Syriens.
$1500
Breton Par M. Precede d’un Précis Historique. (Uses, Costumes and Monuments of the Egyptians, Arabs and Syrians. Preceded by a historical summary.) 1814, Published by A Nerve. Paris. 8vo, brown boards with leather spines, with gilt decorations, red morocco in titles and volumes, gilt titles. Gilt edges, very bright, marbled pink endpaper, 6 Volumes (only 5 shown in photo). A most extraordinary set and worthy of a place in your collection.
A Selection of some 900 British and Irish Mountain Tops [with] The Supplement to A Selection of some 900 British and Irish Mountain Tops and A Selection of 1,000 Tops under 2,500 Feet
$1000
Docharty, William McKnight. A Selection of some 900 British and Irish Mountain Tops [with] The Supplement to A Selection of some 900 British and Irish Mountain Tops and A Selection of 1,000 Tops under 2,500 Feet. Edinburgh: The Darien Press Ltd. for W.M.Docharty, esq., 1954/1962.
First Edition. 3 vols. 4to. original green cloth gilt in dustwrapper; pp. 124; 1-208; 209-260 (last blank), illustrated with numerous photographs and panoramas. No. 36 of a limited edition (allegedly 260 sets), each volume hand inscribed by the author, Willie Docharty, to David and Winifred Horn. A very good set.
The ornithology of Australia : being illustrations of 244 Australian birds, with descriptive letter-press.
$55000
One of the most important Australian ornithological publications of the nineteenth century.
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Mais
$2500
Clergue, Lucien. Maïs. Arles: Le Marais D'Arles, 1960.
First Edition. 4to. original paper wraps, hand-written throughout; pp. [24 (last blank)], with 10 original black/white gelatine photographic prints (9 measure 7.2" x 5.1" , while one measures 9.5"x 6.2"). No. 37 of a limited edition of 150 copies, handmade and signed by the photographer, Lucien Clergue. A very good copy of a scarce early work by this French photographer, featuring various high contrast images of corn from his native Arles region.
Manuscript Book of Ikenobō School Ikebana Flower Arrangements
$1650
Early work with hand drawn and coloured illustrations
Place unknown. Author unknown. Dated Genroku 12 (1699) at rear. 9 leaves. 14.2 x 20.6cm.
Very good. Expected age wear and some minor marks. In recent, custom-made, folding case.
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Dawn The Worlds of Final Fantasy by Yoshitaka Amano
$130
A very good hardback copy of the artwork that inspired the designs of the Final Fantasy games.
Victoria during the Gold Rush
$9500
A detailed map of the state of Victoria. At the time of printing, Victoria was a relatively new colony, established in 1851. The discovery of gold near Ballarat and Bendigo a few months later set off one of the largest gold rushes in history, as settlers poured in to seek their fortunes. The map reflects the colony’s source of population and wealth, showing how settlements cluster around the gold fields.
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“HOBSON BAY AND THE RIVER YARRA LEADING TO MELBOURNE”
$7800
Cartographer: Captain G.H. RICHARDS
Publisher: BRITISH ADMIRALTY
1865 [1901]
Engraving [engraved by J. & C. WALKER]
Very interesting and detailed large plan of Melbourne and Hobson Bay.
All pertinent nautical information as ports, docks, sea depths,
sand bars, wrecks, as well as building, streets, parks etc
are accurately named and tracked.
As updated charts were offered for sale, the earlier outdated charts in the hands of mariners, pilots, ships owners and sailors were invariably discarded, subsequently making all British Admiralty issued hydrographic charts of the period rare
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Suck: First European Sexpaper
$2000
A complete set of Suck, touted as the first European sex newspaper tasked with creating “a new pornography which would demystify male and female bodies”.
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Richard Hussey Shaw
$15000
Watercolour and gouache
31 x 42.5 cm
Signed R. H. Shaw and dated indistinctly
Provenance: Private collection until 2005
A later version of this painting titled South Australian Blacks in Full War Dress 1891 is in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia
Shaw arrived in Australia from England c1858 and settled in Adelaide. He was the son of Captain George Reynolds Shaw. He was a watercolour and scene-painter, produced watercolour landscapes and sketches of Aborigines in South Australia.
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The most important nineteenth-century Armenian atlas
$28500
One of the great milestones of Armenian language cartography, being the first Armenian school atlas and the second ever Armenian world atlas. It also contains one of the earliest maps to depict a proposed independent state of ‘Armenia’ cleaved out of the Ottoman Empire, a politically incendiary notion and powerful rhetorical device of the ‘Armenian National Awakening’.