The catalogues of the autumn book auctions in the Reiss & Sohn jubilee year are now online. The auction house, which was founded in 1971 in the Gutenberg city of Mainz, offers around 3,000 rare books, manuscripts, atlases and maps as well as graphic art and photography. Collectors can look forward to many scientific highlights such as the first printing of Galileo Galilei’s famous “Dialogo” from 1632 (estimated price 100,000 Euros). The most expensive and certainly most spectacular piece is the important universal chronicle “Rudimentum novitiorum”, from 1475 in an illuminated copy (1,2 million Euros estimate). Another very rare work offered is Lorenz Stöer’s “Geometria et Perspectiva”, a most beautiful masterpiece of book illustration, printed in Augsburg in 1567 (50,000 Euros estimate). In addition to the otherwise rich offerings some special collections on national economics, on philosophy and on the Reformation, as well as a remarkable series of 60 atlases are forming focal points of the auction event, which runs over 4 days.
