The popularity of rare and first edition books at Indian auction houses

Why Indian auctioneers are adding first and limited edition books to their sales categories

In the universe of rare book collectors, Sunil Baboo’s reputation precedes him. A few years ago, his son Akshay, a winemaker, approached an antiquarian book dealer in France to look for a birthday gift for his father — say, a historical volume on India. It did not take ten minutes for the Frenchman to ask if he was perhaps related to a Sunil, and throw in a 30 per cent discount to boot.

From saving bubblegum wrappers in his teens, Baboo, an advertising and management consultant from Bengaluru, moved to searching for books. The earliest of these, a first edition of The Illustrated Handbook of Indian Arms by Wilbraham Egerton acquired in Hyderabad, set him off on a worldwide quest for books, documents, letters and maps, especially to do with figures like Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. That maiden purchase and a number of other rare books and manuscripts from his repertory will be auctioned by Prinseps in Mumbai on September 4 and 5.

From the pages of The Coronation Book of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

Besides works of fine art, jewellery, and vintage cars, Indian auctioneers seem to be adding first and limited edition books as a sale category in their annual calendar. Prinseps, founded in 2017, is a recent entrant among auction houses but last year it sold books from the estate of Rabindranath Tagore, with a first-edition volume of Gaganendranath Tagore’s absurdist cartoons going for a record Rs 19.8 lakh. Early entrant Saffronart has held at least four such sales since 2015, with a copy of Arisophanes’ Lysistrata illustrated and signed by Pablo Picasso earning Rs 6 lakh. Astaguru sold books with Western etchings of India last year.

Copies of Forty Years of the Rajkumar College

During a preview of Baboo’s collection over the weekend, several lawyers whose “whole vocation is about reading and researching” asked keen questions, says Indrajit Chatterjee, founder and director of Prinseps. Chatterjee collects rare books too but says the time and effort involved means there are few impressive collections available at all in India. “It requires travelling overseas and seeing what the booksellers of London or Paris have, and scouring street corners in Bombay and Calcutta.”

Most of the older books relate to Empire, or hunting and travel expeditions. The ages of the books range from the 17th century to 50 years. Prinseps will offer a De Vita Caesarum or The Twelve Caesars, a biographical account of the Caesars of Rome printed in 1605. For books to be classified as rare, their first editions must have only about 100 copies.

Copies of Forty Years of the Rajkumar College

They say a book that is shut is but a block but aesthetically pleasing blocks have takers too. Leather bindings, characterful patina, and a stamp of coat of arms belonging to royal families or esteemed libraries of the world are also points of interest. Auction houses here have been consulting with international libraries, secondhand marketplace AbeBooks, and aggregators like BookFinder.com to know how to price items. “There is no MRP really for these books. Is it worth Rs 10,000 or one lakh or three?” observes Chatterjee. “That is the opportunity we have and the problem we are solving.”

It is evident that Baboo has favourites among his collection, from which he likes to repeat stories. In his Tipu Sultan selection is Charles Ball’s The History of the Indian Mutiny (1860), estimated to bring in Rs 1.85 lakh to 2.40 lakh. It provides an alternative history of the cartridges coated in pig fat, saying they had been greased to seal them from Bengal’s ambient humidity and were not greased after production moved to cooler Meerut once the company learnt of the soldiers’ reservations. “This particular incident was one column in the book but people tend to believe that the mutiny happened because of the cartridges. It was a little episode among several things.”

Map of the Lands of Tippo Saheb Immediately Following the 4th Anglo Mysore War (1799)

Opportunities to revise past events drive collectors too. The Rare Book Society of India, started by Subbiah Yadalam in Bengaluru in 2004, believes “there is more than one truth in history”. The community of antiquarian book enthusiasts finds and makes available e-copies, and has animated discussions on Facebook. At age 60, Baboo has decided to shift his attention to art from rural India but he reckons younger people will take this eclectic interest ahead, as “a lot of privately held collections are waiting to come out” from royal families in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Rajasthan.

Caring for rare books is painstaking work. Saffronart warns that they are prone to wormhole damage and water stains. There are demand challenges, too, with some sales doing better than others. In its debut auction, through its online shopping unit StoryLTD, Saffronart sold 94 per cent of the art-themed lots but 32 per cent of first edition and signed books in a recent sale were left behind. But people like Baboo, whose son collects wines, know that books age just as well.