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lludwig · ‎11-02-2006

SATNROSE’S BOOK QUIZ

2. What is the most valuable printed book?

Answer in invisible ink: 2. Was The Gutenberg Bible; now it is the Caxton Canterbury Tales

Note: I think a complete Gutenberg would beat the Canterbury if offered up to auction. However, the Caxton Canterbury is currently the most expensive printed book ever to change hands. 13 million? I forget.....

oldbookshopnj · ‎10-07-2008

552. Omnibook?

professorbooknoodle · ‎10-07-2008

Ha hah! Omnibook it is for the correct answer to 552. Congratulations to oldbookshopnj!

oldbookshopnj · ‎10-07-2008

553. What is the most valuable daguerreotype to have been sold at auction?

imagine.ink · ‎10-07-2008

553. Is it this one?

"An exceptionally rare whole plate daguerreotype of
San Francisco, California taken by Robert Vance
during May 1856 at the height of the activities of
the city’s Second Vigilance Committee featured
a large building draped with a banner
commemorating the assassination of James King
of William, a muckraking newspaper editor."

~ Sold for $143,750 at Cowan's Americana Auction in May, 2004

oldbookshopnj · ‎10-08-2008

553. Set your sights much higher.

satnrose · ‎10-08-2008

How bout this:

http://www.cronaca.com/archives/000960.html.

At Christie's in London on 20 May [2003], the oldest extant image of the remains of the Athenian Temple of Olympian Zeus, or "Olympieion", on the Acropolis, 1842 - among the most "modern" compositions by the seasoned 19th-century French traveller, artist and historian of Islamic architecture, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892) - became the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction. . .

This unique, large, full-plate image . . . more than quadrupled its estimate of £90,000-120,000, rocketing the benchmark for both a Daguerreotype and record for a photograph at auction to a monumental £565,250, or $922,488.....

oldbookshopnj · ‎10-08-2008

553. That's the one I had: Temple de Jupiter.

It's no longer the most expensive photograph sold at auction; it's only fourth on the list now.

fine.books · ‎10-08-2008

Actually Temple de Jupiter.

imagine.ink · ‎10-08-2008

Oldbookshop, do you happen to know the most expensive American daguerreotype sold at auction? Just curious... 🙂

oldbookshopnj · ‎10-08-2008

imagine.ink:

In 1995 an image of the U.S. Capitol sold for $189,500 (I remember reading at the time that it had been acquired at a flea market for $5), and a portrait daguerreotype by a U.S. photographer sold for $387,500 in 1999.

On the last page of this article on daguerreotype values the author says that private sales in excess of $1M are believed to have taken place.

satnrose · ‎10-08-2008

The Bay Psalm Daguerreotype

imagine.ink · ‎10-09-2008

Wow, Oldbookshop, thanks for that well-researched answer! I really appreciate it.

Oh, for the good old days before the 1970s when daguerreotypes could be had for next to nothing (of course, I was just a kid then, so had no choice but to let that opportunity slip by!)

I think vernacular (amateur) photographs are still in the early stages of becoming a hot collectible ... there's still plenty of gold in photography.

Satnrose ... 🙂