ed, some time ago, and among many
other remarkable things, that 'a private buyer cannot obtain a book by
auction in London at any price.' The extreme foolishness of such a
statement need not be enlarged upon in this place. That the knock-out
system does exist in London no one but a fool would deny. That it does
occur now and then at such places as Sotheby's, Christie's, Puttick and
Simpson's and Hodgson's, is without any manner of doubt, but not to any
extent worth mentioning. Where the system is in vogue is at sales held
in private houses, and at auction-rooms where books are not generally
sold. At such places books are usually knocked down at absurdly low
figures, until the private person steps in, when the prices begin to go
up with a bound; they then realize oftentimes figures far above those at
which they may be acquired at the shops. After the private bidder has
been excited into paying an excessive price for his lots, he realizes
that he is doing a foolish thing, and resigns the game into the hands of
the trade, when the prices again begin to assume their former very low
levels. The knock-out books are taken away by their nominal purchaser,
and in a convenient back parlour of some handy 'pub' they are put up
again for competition among the clique, when all profits realized are
thrown into a pool, and afterwards equally divided.

'The two books you commissioned me to get were knocked down at L1 15s.
and 10s. respectively,' said a bookseller to a well-known collector only
the other day; 'and if you insist upon having them at these prices, plus
the commission, you must have them. But as a matter of fact they cost me
L1 over and above the total of L2 5s.' The reply to the collector's
demand for an explanation was, 'Smith agreed to let me have these two
books if I did not oppose his bidding for the Fielding.' It is scarcely
necessary to say that the total cost, with the L1 thrown in, was much
below the original commission, whilst the Fielding ran up to
considerably over the price Smith intended to have given. By striking a
balance, the two cronies each obtained what he wanted. An arrangement of
this sort is nearly invariably the explanation of two extreme prices
being paid for equally good copies of one book in a single season.

In 1781 a portion of the library formed by Ralph Sheldon, of Weston,
Warwickshire, chiefly in the third quarter of the seventeenth century,
was sold at Christie's, but the auctioneer throughou