15th Century Clerk’s Manual and Project Blue Book: The Week in Rare Books

This weekly auction result is provided by Spencer W Stuart, an independent collections advisor specializing in rare books and manuscripts as well as fine photography and prints. He is also the author of Contemporary Issues in Rare Books & Manuscript Collecting and host of the monthly webinar Collecting Insights.

These are the three lots that stuck out this week because of either uniqueness or exceeding expectations:

* De Cartis Salutat(ionis?)
Clerk’s manual, 15th century chancery hand, 52 leaves, on vellum, with rubricated and inhabited initials, rubricated text, instructional tables including ‘Prima tabula salutatione ad sumnum pontificem’, final 5pp. in another hand, signature of the antiquarian Thomas Martin of Palgrave (1696/7 – 1771) to fore-edge flap, and initial to pastedown, also ‘John Younge’ to stub. Sold for £30,240 at Chiswick Auctions.

* Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects)

First printing of the almost unobtainable 1955 USAF report on UFOs. Restricted distribution, limited to 100 copies, this being copy no. 10, from the USAF Press Desk. Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. Although the project published several earlier reports and summaries,
 Special Report No. 14 in 1955 was the first comprehensive statistical
 analysis of Blue Book cases. It includes an introduction, discusses how 
the program was conducted and types of identifications, contains 200 pages of tables and data summarizing more than 2,200 unidentified flying object reports, and includes 41 figures and drawings. Sold at Potter & Potter for $50,400 following an estimate of $4,000-$6,000

* The Athenæum and California Critic: or the Cultivation of the Memorable and the Beautiful

The first four issues of the short-lived 1859 weekly newspaper, edited by Cora Anna Weekes, each wrapper with bookplate of Robert Ernest Cowan. Sold at PBA Galleries for $3,125 following an estimate of $300-$500