New York – Christie’s Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana online totalled $7,313,038, selling 147% hammer against low estimate, and 84% by lot. The sale showed great strength for the category in terms of both prices realized and range of participants. Bidders and buyers from 30 different nations from all corners of the globe took part, including from Asia, the Middle East, North and South America, as well as across Europe. One in five bidders and buyers was new to the books and manuscripts category at Christie’s, and almost 10 percent of bidders and buyers were millennials.

Christie’s international head of books and manuscripts, Margaret Ford said: “Offering one of the most important documents in history – Columbus’s announcement to Europe of the Americas – and setting a world auction record of almost $4 million is a career-defining moment for my Christie’s colleagues and me. It has been especially gratifying to see our own passion for books matched by collectors, who continue to appreciate such historical documents with all their nuances and complexities. We are also thrilled to see the diversity of collectors who participated in this sale, a sign of the healthy future of our category.”

The top lot of the sale was Epistola de insulis nuper inventis, the earliest obtainable edition of Christopher Columbus’s letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella announcing his “discovery” of the American continent. The printed edition of the letter in Latin realized $3,922,000, 392 percent of its low estimate. Other top lots included the first edition of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, 1776, which made $151,200; Shakespeare’s Second Folio, 1632, containing the first appearance in print of John Milton, which brought $138,600; and a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, from Wells' A Noble Fragment, which realized $119,700.