Christie's New York “The Birth of Modern Business and Spring Fine Books and Manuscripts” sale closed for $4,693,750.
Records for LUCA PACIOLI (1447-1517). Summa de arithmetica, geometry, proportions and proportionality. Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis, November 1494. Estimate: $1,000,000 – 1,500,000 Realized price: $1,215,000
Notable findings include Edgar Allan Poe's $250.000; The Galley Proofs of Francis Crick and James Watson's Articles on DNA: “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids,” which fetched $350.000, surpassing the $250.000 high estimate; Karl Bodmer's Journey to the Interior of North America, sold for $187,500; and Marcus Elieser Bloch's Ichthyology, Our Natural History, General and Particular of Fish, which made $100.000.
Also for Benjamin Franklin's "First American" letters to Henry Homes, Lord Kames, which fetched $106.000; Albert Einstein's matches including Albert Einstein and Paul Epstein, who made $93.750 and $81.250; and a Thomas Jefferson signed a letter to John Page, which made $85.000.
There is no shortage of curios for collectors of modern literature, an exceptionally brilliant and unabridged first edition copy of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in Cugat's iconic dust jacket.
FITZGERALD, F. Scott (1896-1940). The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. Realized price USD 43,750 (estimate USD 40,000 – USD 60,000)
