How to bid? Stay home and do it over the internet? Or by telephone? Or fly to London for the action? Let’s give that last one a few seconds’ thought: airfare, hotel, meals. $2000 for a couple of days? Nah! I’d rather put the money into a book I don’t yet have. Maybe, if I’m lucky, one with a butterfly.

It’s an intriguing situation. Dmitri and Christie’s have decided to start out low (at about half what they would get at retail), to draw us in. So, I think, most of the lots will sell. This is a total turnaround from the Tajan sale in Geneva in 2004 when Dmitri consigned too many books at extremely high estimates and absolutely nothing sold, as far as I can tell. A complete fiasco and embarrassment.

I’m certainly going to consider bidding on a few of the lots. But I’ll have to go into family financial consulting mode first.

Ridiculously low estimates, obviously to lure bidders in. At those expectations, most of the lots should sell. But there are so many. Do you want the typewriters his wife or secretary used, but which he never touched, to transcribe from his index cards? I don’t.

Dmitri Nabokov has consigned 111 lots of Nabokoviana–books (inscribed/signed/lepidopterized/annotated) and personal belongings–to Christie’s, London, South Kensington, for auction on 13 June.

See the details and an ecatalog at Christie’s.

Some thoughts:

That’s a lot of Nabokov lots—112 of them (including the outlier, lot 281, not from Dmitri Nabokov). I think Dmitri has made the same mistake again—consigning too much at once. I certainly understand the desire to create excitement by offering so many eye-watering items at the same time. But I doubt the market can bear the load.

And those prices! So out of line with the marketplace. Only one explanation: Start everything attractively low to pull in the bidders and then let their desires and enthusiasms push up the prices. But I am certain that some lots at affordable prices will sneak through. I’ve got my eyes on a few, but only if…

I think a tip-off on the reasoning on the prices is the plain and lonesome non-DN lot #281 of his Russian Mashen’ka at US$6100-9000. That is ridiculously high for such a beat up copy. It will never sell. Obviously, the consignor thought very differently than Dmitri.

Whatever the case, I’ve just ordered my copy of the catalog.

Be aware that on the Christie’s website, the online list isn’t complete. It shows only 52 lots. Look at the electronic version of the catalog instead, starting on p. 97.