Skip to content
4 corners of the globe

PBA Galleries auction spans 4 corners of the globe Dec. 13

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
4 corners of the globe
Original photos of sailing ships. PGA Galleries image

SAN FRANCISCO – PBA Galleries will conduct an auction of Americana, travel and exploration, hunting and sporting, world history and cartography on Thursday, Dec. 13. Up for bid will be over 550 lots of rare, interesting and uncommon material on the history, exploration, cartography, and culture of the four corners of the globe, ranging from travels into the Ottoman Empire and the Levant to cattle drives in the American West. Included are books, manuscripts, photographs, ephemeral material, graphic items and a wide range of maps. There is a special section of hunting and sporting books, many from the Derrydale Press. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.

Highlighted are some San Francisco-related works such as original photos of sailing ships, from the R.J. Waters Co., with some over 430 gelatin silver prints (estimate: $3,000-$5,000). A scarce pictorial Merry-makers Map of San Francisco, 1940, shows all the nightclubs, saloons, fine restaurants, and other entertainment venues located in the city once known as “Baghdad by the Bay” ($1,200-$1,800).

4 corners of the globe
Folding pictorial map of ribald San Francisco, 1940. PGA Galleries image

PBA will be offering a variety of world history material. A fourth-century sculpture of the head of the world-conqueror Alexander the Great is from the ancient Gandhara civilization in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan ($10,000-$15,000).

4 corners of the globe
Fourth-century bust of Alexander the Great. PGA Galleries image

Nicolas de Nicolay’s popular illustrated work on the Ottoman Empire, Les navigations peregrinations et boyages, faicts en la Turquie, 1576, contains depictions of the various peoples under Turkish suzerainty ($5,000-$8,000). The History of Japan, by Engelbert Kaempfer, two volumes, 1728, with 45 engraved maps and plates, most folding or double page, is a key work in shaping Western perceptions of Japan ($5,000-$8,000).

4 corners of the globe
One of the maps contained in Kaempfer’s ‘History of Japan,’ 1728. PGA Galleries image

The Americana section includes rare Civil War broadside advertising a concert organized by “The Ladies of Charleston,” South Carolina, to raise money for the construction of a gunboat for the Confederate Navy, which was to become the ironclad ram CSS Palmetto State ($2,000-$3,000).

4 corners of the globe
Charleston Ladies’ Gunboat broadside. PGA Galleries image

Helen H. Taft’s memoirs, Recollections of Full Years, 1914, signed by her and her husband, President William Howard Taft, is a rare dual signing ($2,000-$3,000).  Also going up for bid is an autographed note of love and affection from American patriot John Hancock to his wife in 1791 ($3,000-$5,000).

Lastly, to be featured is a hunting/sporting piece, a rare issue bound in full ion skin, of Rowland Ward’s Record of Big Game, XIth Edition, 1962, one of an estimated 35 to 70 copies so bound ($1,000-$1,500).

The sale will begin Thursday, Dec. 13, at 11 a.m. Pacific time/2 p.m. Eastern. For more information, contact PBA Galleries at 415-989-2665 or pba@pbagalleries.com.

[av_button label=’View the fully illustrated catalog and bid on LiveAuctioneers.’ link=’manually,https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/132091_americana-hunting-history-travel-maps/’ link_target=’_blank’ size=’medium’ position=’center’ label_display=” icon_select=’no’ icon=’ue800′ font=’entypo-fontello’ color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ av_uid=’av-mf7hay’ admin_preview_bg=”]