NEW YORK—Large holdings of European Americana rarely surface on the market, but on December 3 at Bloomsbury Auctions, a stellar collection from a private San Francisco bibliophile hits the block. The De Orbe Novo Collection 1493-1625, estimated to earn around $2 million, consists of 80 lots that detail the exotic Americas, all printed before the settlement of New England. The first edition of Les voyages de Champlain Xaintongeois (1613) (est. $250-350,000), provides a glimpse of the New World through the eyes of Frenchman Samuel de Champlain, with engravings by David Pelletier

"Unfamiliar Territory" originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's November 2009 Table of Contents.