Salinger Letter, Comic Art, Travel Books: Auction Preview

Image: Forum Auctions

Plate from Luigi Mayer's Selection of the Most Interesting of Sir Robert Ainslie's celebrated Collection of Views in Turkey (1811) showing "Fragments at Ephesus," offered at Forum Auctions this week.

Here's what I'll be watching this week:

On Tuesday, March 11, New England Book Auctions sells 224 lots of Fine Books & Ephemera.

University Archives sells Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Books & Memorabilia on Wednesday, March 12. The 549 lots include a small group of Albert Einstein photographs ($15,000–20,000); a blank ship's passport signed by Abraham Lincoln and William Seward ($10,000–12,000); and a 1972 J.D. Salinger letter to his friend Eileen Paddison ($10,000–12,000).

At RR Auction on Wednesday, 687 lots of Fine Autographs and Artifacts, with a copy of the Beatles album Please Please Me signed by all four Beatles expected to lead the way at more than $50,000. A 2013 autograph copy of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is estimated at more than $40,000. A lengthy 1806 Andrew Jackson letter written before Jackson's duel with Charles Dickinson is expected to sell for more than $15,000.

Forum Auctions sells 298 lots of Travel Books, Maps & Atlases on Thursday, March 13. Heinrich von Mayr's Malerische Ansichten aus dem Orient in the original parts (1839–1840) rates the top estimate at £6,000–8,000, while an imperfect copy of Hakluyt's Principall Navigations (1589) could sell for £2,000–3,000. A copy of Muchir Arif Pacha's Les Anciens Costumes de l'Empire Ottoman (1863) is estimated at £3,000–4,000.

At PBA Galleries on Thursday, 325 lots of Comics: Pre-Code, Superheroes and Original Art, including Amazing Fantasy #15 (first appearance of Spider-Man), estimated at $25,000–35,000. Twenty-six pages of original art for Eric Stanton's "Blundie in Blunderland" (1990) are expected to sell for $15,000–25,000, while Dave Cockrum's original cover art for Doctor Strange #45 could fetch $10,000–15,000.