Author: reiss

The spring auctions at Reiss & Sohn in Königstein concluded with great success on April 23. On the final day of the auction, atlases, maps, geographical books, and decorative prints were sold. The top lot among the 80 atlases on that day was Waghenaer’s famous nautical atlas titled “Miroir de la Navigation,” published in Antwerp in 1590, which sold for €48,000 (rounded including buyer’s premium; estimate €40,000). In the prints section, the rare map of North America, published by Petrus Kaerius, fetched €10,800. At the conclusion of the three-day auction sales at Reiss & Sohn approximately 80% of the lots offered were sold. Even more encouraging was the total proceeds, which reached 95% of the pre-sale estimates. The post-sale will continue through the website until May 8, 2026. Reiss & Sohn thanks everyone who contributed to this success and looks forward to new offerings for the Fall 2026 auction.

Yesterday, bird lovers were in for a real treat. A large and colorful selection of ornithological masterpieces from a well-known private collection was auctioned off with great success as part of the “Valuable Books” catalogue. F. Levaillant’s magnificent parrot book “Histoire naturelle des perroquets” in large folio format was sold to a live bidder on the other side of the world for a hammer price of 55,000 euros.

Another magnificent and unique work, namely J. B. Audebert & L. J. P. Vieillot’s „Oiseaux dorés ou à reflets métalliques“, a 200-copy edition in large folio format featuring “golden and metallic-sheened bird species” with plate captions in gold lettering, achieved a hammer price of 18,000 euros.

Further results, including those for the other auctioned sections, can be found as usual at https://www.reiss-sohn.de/en/auction-sales/ Post-sale starts on our website in course of Friday April 24th.

The spring auctions conclude today with the sale of the remaining lots from the geography catalog, including approximately 80 atlases and town books, world maps and early regional maps, decorative star charts and views, and much more.

With a sell-rate of over 80%, most of which exceeding their estimates, Reiss & Sohn got off to a very successful start on Tuesday with its spring auctions. The lots from the holdings of the Apel Library in Ermlitz, offered in a separate section, opened the day. Here, virtually no lot remained unsold. The highest hammer price of 50,000 euros went to a handwritten musical manuscript by Richard Wagner from the opera „Die Feen“.

The subsequent chapter, “Incunabula and Manuscripts, Old Prints,” was, as in previous auctions, almost entirely sold. Particularly noteworthy was the hammer price of 24,000 euros for a parchment manuscript intended for use in the Mass, created in Germany around 1400 – as well as the hammer price of 20,000 euros for a typical 13th-century “Paris Bible,”  a Latin manuscript on parchment featuring numerous fleuronnée initials in red and blue.

The mining section, which was exceptionally extensive this time with 72 lots, included a large collection of items related to geology and paleontology. In addition to the many international bidders online, a number of specialist buyers were also present in the auction room. Agricola’s “De re metallica libri XII,” a first edition of the most significant mining book of the Renaissance, sold for 20,000 euros; L. Agassiz’s monumental 10-volume work on fish fossils, „Recherches sur les poissons fossils”, changed hands for a hammer price of 11,000 euros.

All results, as well as the catalogues for the upcoming sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, can be found at https://www.reiss-sohn.de/en/auction-sales/

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.

The second auction day in Königstein offered a wide range of items. Here is a brief review of some of the many highlights:

‘Natural intelligence can replace almost any degree of education, but no education can replace natural intelligence.’ One of Arthur Schopenhauer’s most famous quotes. Our customers demonstrated their education and intellect by eagerly bidding on the philosopher’s magnum opus. The first edition of ‘Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung’ (The World as Will and Representation) from 1819 fetched a hammer price of € 20,000 on the telephone (estimate € 10,000, lot 694). The other three titles penned by Schopenhauer also sold for good prices.

A larger selection of books on horsemanship in the Horses, Hunting and Forestry section of the ‘Valuable Books’ catalogue once again attracted an international audience to their computers and telephones. The small collection comprised 33 lots, 29 of which were sold during the auction. Besides classics by Cavendish, Seutter, and Löhneysen, there were numerous rarities on offer, such as Fiorentini and Löhneysen’s ‘Zwey gute und sehr nutzliche Bücher von Stangen und Mundstücken’ (Two good and very useful books on rods and mouthpieces) from 1609 (estimate € 1,000/hammer price € 4,000, lot 805) or C. Reuschel’s ‘Hippopronia’ from 1599 (lot 823, estimate € 1,200/hammer price € 3,500).

The auction of books on geography and travel began in the afternoon, starting with travel books from around the world. The most outstanding lot in this section is a very early edition of a Chinese catechism from the 17th century, which was used for the Christianisation of China until the 1930s. It is a xylographic print on fine Chinese paper in block book binding. The author, João Soeiro (1566-1607), worked as a missionary in Nanchang (Jiangxi Province) from 1595 onwards. After fierce bidding on the telephone, the hammer finally fell at € 30,000. (Lot 1114, estimate € 8,000).

A brief review of yesterday’s exciting first day of auctions in Königstein. Hundreds of live bidders around the world, floor bidders, written bidders and numerous international telephone bidders made yesterday an exciting and extremely successful day for the staff of the Reiss & Sohn auction house, with extensive bidding battles.

The first session, which focused on natural sciences, was almost completely sold out. Numerous lots were in high demand throughout the auction day due to their great rarity and significantly exceeded their estimated prices. Particularly noteworthy was the sale of the first and only edition of C. G. Ludwig’s work ‘Ectypa vegetabilium’ from 1760 ff. with 200 coloured natural prints. Here in a very rare complete copy. (Hammer price 17,000 euros, estimate 8,000 euros, lot 539). The richly illustrated books of hours on offer, each one unique and very special in its own way, also attracted great interest and triggered lengthy bidding wars. Worth mentioning are the hammer price of €34,000 for a book of hours from northern France, circa 1470 (lot 244, estimate €6,000) and the €28,000 hammer price for an equally richly illuminated book of hours from Flanders, circa 1450 (lot 243, estimate €8,000).

The Grammatellus, a textbook for learning basic Latin conversation, printed by Peter Schöffer in Mainz around 1490, with an equally rare supplement, a booklet of titles with examples of the correct form of letters to people of different social standing, found several enthusiasts and ultimately fetched an impressive hammer price of 16,000 euros (estimate 3,000, lot 298A).

These are just a few examples from the first day. All of yesterday’s results can be found in the online catalogue on our website, where you also have the opportunity to submit bids for the next two days or register as a live bidder.

We are pleased to announce our upcoming autumn auctions. Two richly illustrated catalogues with 1900 lots are now accessible online or can be ordered in print:

Catalogue 226: Valuable Books and Manuscripts – Offering more than 1000 lots from the Middle Ages to modern times, including medieval manuscripts and illuminated books of hours, incunabula (many from Cologne printers), numerous books on horsemanship, miniature books, rare first editions, important works of science and philosophy and many more.

Catalogue 227: Geography – Travel – Atlases – Photography – Maps – Decorative Prints – Comprising nearly 900 lots, including many atlases and town books, rare works on Africa, the Americas and Asia, rare maps and splendidly illustrated works on geography and travelling to many parts of the world.

The catalogue preview with an extensive selection of objects from the upcoming auctions is now available online. The selection with descriptions and pictures will be regularly updated with further entries.

You can add objects of your interest to your personal bookmarks list (registration required). The entries of your bookmarks list will be retained when the auction catalogues are published. The catalogue preview can be sorted according to various criteria and is accessible via full-text search. There are three different list views to choose from.

The total number of items on offer can be viewed when the auction catalogues are published approx. 4 weeks before the auction date.

_{Bids cannot be accepted before the auction catalogues are published. We reserve the right to make changes to descriptions and images, to remove items from the catalogue preview and to make any other changes.}