Part One - especially to Dave and Papretis, but anyone else welcome to read:
Thank you both for your interesting posts here! I apologise for being slow to acknowledge them. This past week has been exceptionally busy for me, but I'll try to snatch a little time today to catch up.
The
Deutsche Ephemeride do sound excellent, Dave. I was amazed to see that that set had gone
unsold at the close of the auction, even though ephemerides with more limited information are readily available online, and perhaps quite comprehensive ones have been built into some of the higher-end astrology software available nowadays. (I'm blissfully ignorant of the wonderful astrology software out there, having invested all my money set aside for astrology study in books and not a penny, or cent, in programs, to date!)
Papretis, I'm really glad that the link to the remaining stock of Spica (ie Ascella as rebranded for the Australian / New Zealand market) imprints of the Ascella edition of
'Christian Astrology' books 1 and 2 was helpful to you personally! The same seller, James Clifton, has a small stock of other Spica editions still for sale too, worth checking out for anyone who regrets being too late to buy Ascella editions of some of the classic texts, although to the best of my knowledge Spica itself is in suspended animation currently as a business since Anne Elliot's relocation a year or so ago, and many of the titles she used to offer through Spica are not available in her son's store so far, although he did mention it was possible he would eventually be in a position to stock more of them....
Part Two - to everyone:
Back to the results:
Other than the
unsold Die Deutsche Ephemeride mentioned in my note to Dave above, the relisted books on financial astrology-related themes by
Raymond Merriman and
Jeanne Long in my previous post were also both
unsold, although in these cases because the starting price was too high. However, there have been plenty of other results to note lately, including:
1. An original copy from 1897 of the fourth volume of
Frank Ormsby's scarce astrological journal
'Planets and People' sold for the starting bid of
$69.99.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
This journal is otherwise available as part of a reprint of Volumes III and IV in a single hardcover binding by the Sacred Science Institute. I have seen no sign of Volumes I or II on the used book market to date in any form, though I haven't been looking for long.
2. A copy of
Raphael's
Prophetic Almanac for 1858 sold to a sole bidder for the starting price of
?14.99 (about $29). Like most of the 19th century issues of this annual title, it is collectible chiefly on account of the large fold-out coloured 'hieroglyphic' serving as a pictorial and symbolic representation of the reigning Raphael's mundane predictions for the year. You can see from this listing that the hieroglyphic for this year is similar in style to the example displayed by Kim in her article on the Seven Faces of Raphael at Skyscript. [Cost and prioritisation have stopped me from attempting to collect these fascinating booklets to date!]
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
3. The third edition, in hardcover binding, of
Howard Leslie Cornell's
'Encyclopedia of Medical Astrology' sold to a lucky bidder for a bargain
$10.50.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
4. The fine hardcover edition from 1976 of
Mark Edmund Jones's
'The Sabian Symbols in Astrology' finally sold on its third listing, for a bargain
$6.05.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
5. A rather finely bound, though very recent, hardcover edition of
Kepler's
'The Harmonies of the World' (one of his few works reputed to have significant astrological contents, and one of only two of those that seem to be readily available in English editions), bound together with his purely astronomical
'Epitome of Copernican Astronomy', sold for
$66.00.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
6. A commonplace hardcover copy of the John Story reprint of
W. J. Simmonite's
'The Celestial Philosopher', retitled by Story
'The Complete Arcana of Astral Philosophy', and published by Foulsham in the 1890s and early 20th century, though this particular copy bore no date, sold for a surprisingly high
$67.00. It is not worth nearly that much, as a quick search in the used book networks for unsold copies in similar condition will reveal. This sale was an example of the triumph of marketing over buyers' research. Terms like 'grimoire' were introduced into the listing to make it sound rarer than it was, and the seller was very successful!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
The only truly rare editions of 'The Celestial Philosopher' are those that were published in Simmonite's lifetime, around the 1840s and early 1850s. These are by an order of magnitude scarcer than the John Story reprints of the 1890s and beyond, with only one copy (which I bought) having been listed on the used book networks since the beginning of 2006 to the best of my knowledge, and are worth about ten times as much accordingly - about $200-$300 instead of $20-$30. If I recall correctly, the publisher of the original Simmonite edition was Simpkin and Marshall. Foulsham editions are invariably from the very late 19th century and the early to early-mid 20th century, if my observations are a reliable guide!
7. The copy of
'Merlinus Anglicus Junior, or the Starry Messenger, for the Year of our Redemption, 1719', attributed to
Henry Coley but clearly written by a successor of his unless he stockpiled his predictions for decades in advance, for by then he was long dead, sold for
$120.58.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
8. A set of the first fourteen issues, ie the sum total of all pre-World-War-II issues, of
Andre Volguine's astrological journal
'Les Cahiers Astrologiques' sold for
40.50 Euros (just over $50).
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
These issues span from Jan / Feb 1938 to the middle of 1940, after which it had to be put on hold because of the gravity of the war situation. It was however later resumed in 1946, and continued for about another 200 issues thereafter. Strangely, I have found that the earlier issues seem to be rather more common than the later ones on the used market. This may be because the astrological movement in French-speaking countries, notable France and Belgium, was extremely strong in the 1930s, and was devastated by the war, though it has continued on a less high-profile level ever since. It may also partly be because early issues of any journal are considered collectible at the outset, and are therefore less likely to have been thrown away than later ones.
I have found exactly the same to be true of Alan Leo's journal
'Modern Astrology' - there is a definite bias towards the earlier volumes on the used market, though they are all rare, with the later volumes after his death in 1916 (?), and even those any time after about 1904, being offered much more seldom, although then also for much less money, than the earlier ones. I suspect that the circulation of 'Modern Astrology' dwindled over the years, and that the same was true of 'Les Cahiers Astrologiques', to account for these observations.
9. The finely rebound copy of
Papus's work on astrology and occultism sold for a decent final sum of
41,50 Euros (considerably over $50) after attracting several very late bids.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
10. The original edition of
Elizabeth Aldrich's astrological study of
The Planet Neptune attracted seven bids but still sold for a very reasonable
?6.07 (just over $11), a considerable saving on the cheapest copy available at fixed price on the used book market.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
11. The 1931 reprint of
Olcott's
'Star Lore of All Ages' sold for
$75, a significant over-valuation by the two highest bidders at a time when there was an unsold copy of the same edition on the used book networks for $50. At $75, this should have been a first edition, but it wasn't - by a margin of twenty years.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
12. An original copy in indifferent condition at best, of
Roback's
'The Mysteries of Astrology and the Wonders of Magic', from 1854, sold to a leading ebay trader in occult books for
$127.50. He must believe he can resell it for a lot more! I seem to recall that this book has come up before in this strand, towards the end of last year, and what I remember commenting then applies still today: it is not especially scarce, with typically several copies coming up on ebay every year, and not of all that much interest to astrologers as far as can be discerned from its brushing together of astrology and magic under a single title; yet it seems to retain a strong following of collectors from the more general occult-interest fields.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
13. The collection of
seventy-nine late 20th-century astrology books, mostly popular titles, and many of them lightweight, although there are some solid beginner-to-intermediate level classics in the bundle too, offered together with a starting price of $200 and a 'Buy It Now' option of $600, was
unsold.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1
I think it would pay the seller to split up the lot into small bundles, since the vast majority would be of little interest to practising astrologers, and those that would be of interest to practising astrologers are probably too serious for the average casual popular astrology-book reader, besides the fact that many people probably have at least some of the titles already and do not want to pay $200 to duplicate them and add many other titles only some of which are of any interest.
**************************
There is a fair assortment of interesting listings coming up now, but I'll have to describe those I can in a later post because my time is up for now. I hope some of the above results were of interest in any case!
Wishing all at Skyscript well,
Philip