Resources to assist the collector can be scattered around the internet, found in libraries, and shared by fellow collectors. Auctions, Values, Provenance, are all constantly sought. Below are several resources used by many of the society members and collectors as they search, study and collect. If you have any suggestions of a resource you have found useful and that we should consider adding please contact sands@manuscript.org.
Rare Book Hub
https://www.rarebookhub.com/
Who Uses the Rare Book Hub? As noted on the Rare Book Hub website: “The Rare Book Hub is a resource for information pertaining to rare, antiquarian, and collectible books and related ephemeral material – manuscripts, letters, maps, posters, broadsides, photographs, and prints (works on paper). It is based on the principle that knowledge is power….”
Manuscript Criteria
The Society’s Criteria contains a handy list of abbreviations and a glossary of terms commonly used in dealer catalogs and other descriptions of autographs and manuscripts. The 11-page guide is now available and can be downloaded without charge to serve the needs of both collectors and dealers. A committee of The Manuscript Society headed by Norman Boas consulted widely with dealers, collectors, manuscript curators, and archivists in establishing the guidelines for describing manuscript autographs and documents.
Click here for a PDF of the criteria. You can then save the file, print it out, or do both in your Web browser.
The Checklist for Collectors
This 75th anniversary of the Manuscript Society in 2023 motivated us to create a check list of the volumes of our journal from it’s first issue through 2022. As you will see, it’s original name was, Autograph Collector’s Journal and later was changed to Manuscripts when the society also changed its name. Click here for your own copy of the Checklist.