Even slightly less spectacular items are surpassing estimates.

“If nothing else, we’ve seen an uptick in participation and enthusiasm,” says James Gannon, the director of rare books at Heritage Auctions. Heritage’s third auction of books from the library of editor and publisher Otto Penzler, Gannon says, doubled its estimate.

At Christie’s, “all of our online sales have surpassed their low estimates,” says Geiger. “People have time on their hands to look at online catalogues and spend time more than they otherwise would have online shopping.”

Christie’s isn’t alone in seeing a rise in online sales—not necessarily a given, considering the specific condition issues and concerns of the rare book market. (To take an obvious example, if a book has a damaged page, you wouldn’t know it from an online listing, though every lot comes with a condition report.)

More generally, auction houses have discovered, to their delight, that home-bound buyers are increasingly willing to spend huge sums online without ever seeing the objects in person. In July, Christie's live-streamed a sale of fine art that totaled $421 million.

“To be clear, the move online had started before Covid,” says David Goldthorpe, the head of the books and manuscripts department at Sotheby’s London. “It was just massively accelerated by it.”

Last month, a 15th century, five-folio compilation of works by Aristotle was estimated from $200,000 to $300,000, and sold, with buyer’s premium, for $475,000 at Christie’s. “It’s fairly specific, and the type of thing I’d normally think people have to come in to see,” says Geiger. Yet the lot sold to an online bidder.

Even works that previously hadn’t generated much interest have done well this summer.

“We sold a [Ludwig] Wittgenstein letter for $143,000,” says Bonhams’s Sutherland. “Its high estimate [a few years before] at Christie’s was $50,000,” and it failed to sell. “You know how busy things are in modern life,” he continues. “I think, now people simply have more time and space and the wherewithal to pursue [collecting].”

Weak Middle, Sharp Top
The resilience of the top of the rare book market is particularly notable, given the 20-year-long erosion of the rest of the market.