Kestenbaum sale of fine Judaica

Date: 25.08.2005 Source: news agency "Russian Antique"

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Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. Constantinople. 1509. Sold for $148,240 [zoom (20k)]

Some exceptional Hebrew post-incunabula as well as selections of American Judaica ware presented at Kestenbaum and Company's auction in New York. The top lot of the sales was an extremely rare Constantinople 1509 edition of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah which brought $148,240 against an estimate of $80,000√100,000.

Other highlights included a Constantinople 1540 edition of Jacob ben Asher's Rabbinic Code in a grand contemporary binding that was sold for $64,900, a rare first edition of Maimonides' fundamental Rabbinic text, ╚Sepher HaMitzvoth╩ (Book of Precepts), Constantinople, circa 1510, which fetched $56,050, and Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi's classic ethical treatise, ╚Sha'arei Teshuvah╩, which realized $42,480 against an estimate of $25,000√30,000.

Among items that did well also were a rare first edition of Nachmanides' ╚Hasagoth╩ (Criticism of Maimonides' earlier philosophical tract), Constantinople, 1510 which realized $41,300, a superb Bomberg Venetian Bible, 1546-1548, which was sold for $31,860, and a rare Venetian 1547 edition of Isaac ibn Sahula's ╚Meshal ha-Kadmoni╩, which brought $29,500.

The American-Judaica section of the sale performed well too. Important examples included Hayyim Isaac Carigal's seminal ╚Sermon Preached at the Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, 1773╩, which sold for $46,020 against an estimate of $25,000√30,000; a complete ten-volume set of Isaac Leeser's ╚Discourses on the Jewish Religion╩, Philadelphia, 1866-67, which made $34,220, and a fine, grandly bound first edition of the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English by Isaac Leeser, Philadelphia, 1853, which fetched $33,040.

Next Judaica sale by Kestenbaum and Company's next will take place on September 20.