Viewing NotesIn addition to bidding over the Artfact Live platform, absentee and phone bidding is available by contacting National Book Auctions directly either by email at mail@nationalbookauctions.com or calling 1-607-269-0101. Preview open from 10:00am until noon on auction day, or by appointment. Our gallery is located at 1429 Danby Road (Route 96B) in Ithaca, NY, 14850.

Sale NotesThis catalog features rare, antique and decorative books as well as select additions of ephemera and antiques. Featured is a fine scholarly estate library along with estate items from celebrated 19th century historian and traveler, Henry J. Van Lennep, and important early printings by and about Benjamin Franklin. Also, a large quantity of new and antique nautical titles focused on seafaring history and ship modeling. Many of the books bear signatures by prominent authors and figures such as astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and we will also offer a collection of 56 original letters by Upton Sinclair.

Antique books include numerous rare and important titles. Several lots include works written and/or published by Benjamin Franklin, including the 1745 Franklin printing of "The Confession of Faith," the 6-volume "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin," published during 1809-1818, the 1787 "Bibliotheque Physico-Economique, Instructive et Amusante,"and "Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin" published in two volumes in 1794. We are also pleased to offer books and ephemera from the estate of Henry J. Van Lennep including what is believed to have been his personal copy of his rare and desirable landmark folio, "The Oriental Album," first published in 1862. Other antique highlights include the 1833 "History of the United States" by Noah Webster, a 1721 first edition of "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer," and a 1901 first edition of Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery," with the author's signature. Other genres of collectible books include travel & exploration, Egyptology, art history, children's, bibliographic, occult, and many others.

Other lots include pleasing groups of ephemera and antiques. Ephemera lots offer a large collection of first day covers along with select groupings of antique correspondence, photographs, art and various other genres. Highlights among the art are two original 1901 Remington prints in period frames. Collectible antique items include pottery, a large collection of bells including sleigh bells, antique horse tack items with leather and brass fittings including bridle rosettes, and a pair of rare postal service cancel stamps with interchangeable date and time blocks. Additionally offered are antique Native American wool blankets and early Eastern carpets from the Van Lennep family estate. A host of other antique collectible items will also be offered.