Reiss & Sohn

The current catalogues for the spring auctions at Reiss & Sohn are now available online. A total of around 1,700 lots of valuable and rare books, manuscripts and prints will be offered for sale during the three-day auction event in Königstein im Taunus. The most expensive lot in Auction 228 is a collection of 40 letters from Richard Wagner to his childhood friend Theodor Apel (estimated price €140,000). No less significant is a section of the original manuscript of Wagner’s first opera, ‘Die Feen’ (€40,000). Another highlight is Ptolemy’s ‘Almagest’ in the 1528 printed edition from the former collection of Copernicus’s pupil Georg Joachim Rheticus, who also added numerous handwritten annotations (€50,000). Another focus is on works on ornithology, including Levaillant’s magnificent work on parrots, his “Histoire naturelle des perroquets”, published 1801–1805, here in the Imperial folio edition with 145 colour-engraved plates (€60,000). Over 70 works on mining, geology and palaeontology form another interesting offering. A highlight of this section is the first edition of Georg Agricola’s ‘De re Metallica libri XII’ from 1556 (€30,000).

The second auction catalogue, covering geography, travel and atlases, features, within the section comprising 80 atlases, an edition of Wagenhaer’s famous nautical atlas, the ‘Miroir de la navigation’ from 1590, containing 47 nautical charts (€40,000). Among the approximately 600 lots of prints and maps, the most expensive item is the world-map by Clouet-Mondhare with the 4 continents, all together published as an ensemble of 5 wall-maps in 1776

A highly successful auction year came to a close with the fall auctions. Reiss & Sohn is already preparing for an exciting new year in 2026 and already has some beautiful pieces in store for the spring auctions from April 21-23, 2026, including an extensive collection of ornithological books with a focus on parrots. Consignments are welcome from now until mid-February. We would be happy to advise you without obligation. To get an idea of our success, you will find a detailed review of the year with various highlights under the menu item news/press release.

As on the previous days, the bidding book for the geography auction was full to bursting on Thursday. Coupled with numerous telephone and live bidders, the auction continued into the evening and the auction season ended with a very good result. As has been the case recently, the atlas section was the highest-turnover section of the geography catalogue. Here, a collector’s atlas with maps by Dutch cartographers and publishers such as Blaeu, Visscher and Janssonius, published around 1660, fetched € 36,000 (estimate € 20,000/lot 1489). Four volumes (of five) of the German edition of J. Janssonius’ ‘Novus Atlas’ with 314 old coloured engraved maps, were sold to a telephone bidder for € 28,000 (estimate € 25,000/lot 1476). A magnificently coloured copy of Münster’s ‘Cosmographia’ from 1628 fetched the estimated price of € 16,000.

Another item that attracted strong bidding was a border-coloured world map in Mercator projection with extensive marginal illustrations in copperplate engraving by P. Kaerius at J. Janssonius, published in Amsterdam in 1632, which sold for € 10,000 (estimate € 8,000, lot 1485). All results and the post-auction sale are now available on our website.

We would like to thank all bidders and consignors for participating in our autumn auctions and for placing their trust in our company.