Last year, about this time, I reported on the first sale of items from the Rodney Davidson Collection of Australiana. Now the second auction is about to take place and Jane Sullivan, of "The Age", has been a long to have a look.
The first sale returned $A5.7million, and while that figure may not be reached this time, the "second Melbourne sale, featuring 200 books, maps and documents from the period 1810 to 1850, also promises to attract huge interest. Jonathan Wantrup, executive director of Australian Book Auctions, which is handling the sale, says the Davidson collection is the world's finest and most comprehensive private collection of Australiana."
The piece also includes some nice stories about the book collecting trade. Some publisher should get Davidson to write his memoirs. It would make interesting, and amusing, reading.
