I offer more than 50 years of experience in appraising, cataloguing and selling rare printed books and manuscripts.

An outline of my career:

Cataloguer and senior cataloguer of printed books, Christie’s London, 1964 - 1975.

Printed books and manuscripts specialist, Christie’s New York, 1975 – 1999, as well as, successively, Vice President; Member of Board of Directors; Senior Vice President; International Department Head; and Senior International Consultant.

International Consultant to Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller, London, UK. 2001 –   present. 

Senior International Consultant to Bloomsbury Auctions, London, UK. 2007-2016; Senior International Consultant to Forum Auctions, London, UK. 2016-present.   

Regular participant appraiser on the Antiques Roadshow television series, produced by WGBH in Boston, broadcast nationwide on public television stations. 1996 – present.

Throughout my work of cataloguing and selling numerous private and institutional collections and libraries, a few highlights include:

Seeking out, securing for auction, cataloguing and selling the Leonardo da Vinci Codex Leicester (1994) to Bill Gates for $30,802,500 

Selling two copies of the Gutenberg Bible (1978 and 1987)

Selling three copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence (1975, 1982 and 1983)

Selling five copies of the First Folio of Shakespeare (1976, 1980, 1981, 1990 and 1991)

Selling six copies of the first edition of Audubon The Birds of America (1977 x 2, 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1993).

Appraisals, conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, include:

Anglesey Abbey (1966); Woburn Abbey (1968); Shirburn Castle (1969 – 1970); Knowsley Hall (1971); Chatsworth (1968 – 1974); South Walsham Hall (1973); Wardington Manor (1994 – 2004), all of these in the UK.

In USA, I have appraised property of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. (1977); Curtis Institute of Music (1978); Colonial Williamsburg (1979); Chew family of Philadelphia (1982); Lyndhurst (1982);               H. Bradley Martin (1984); Biltmore House (1998); Huntington Free Library (2000); Gilder Lehrman Collection (2001, 2002, 2004); Detroit Public Library (2002); New York Botanical Garden (2002); National Archives of Canada (2003); Manhattanville College (2003); American Bible Society (2004 – 2007); Carleton University Art Gallery (2006); Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (2007-2016); Papers of the Sylvester Manor Trust (2008); Papers of Ambassador William Bullitt and Louise Bryant (2008); Library and Papers of Joseph F. McCrindle (2008 – 2009); Washington National Cathedral Library (2010); William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA (2012); California Institute of the Arts (2013); Posner Fine Arts Foundation (2011-2022)

I have also served as an expert witness, in 1999 for Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom, on the values of printed and manuscript Bible texts, in the litigation of Van Kampen v. Smith; and in 2010 at Newcastle Crown Court, UK, in R – v – Raymond Scott, on the identification and value of the Durham University Library copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare, stolen in 1998.