swanngalleries

Photobook of North American Indians Set to Fetch Millions at Auction

Behold: one of the rarest photobooks in the world. What you're looking at is an exceedingly rare complete set of American photographer Edward S. Curtis' book The North American Indian. It contains 772 large-format photogravures on Japanese tissue, 111 signed plates, and 20 extra text volumes that contain an additional 1,505 photogravures, 4 maps, and 2 diagrams.

Swann Galleries will be auctioning it off on October 4, 2012 with an estimated price of $1,250,000 - $1,750,000. This figure, however, may end up being much lower than the actual price it'll sell for. A similar set of this photobook was auctioned by Christie's back in April. After giving that set an estimated price of $1,000,000 - $1,500,000, it ended up selling for a whopping $2,882,500.