"The Gill Collection of Historical Gem Books", all sold in four, single owner sales, at Christie's, world famous auction house, Madison Avenue, New York City. The Gill Collection was included as part of the sale catalog, "Magnificent Jewels". The jewels and gems brought in over 20 million dollars in each sale. 1st sale: Wednesday, October 21, 1987; 2nd sale: Tuesday, December 2, 1987; 3rd sale: Wednesday, April 20, 1988 & the last, 4th and final, single owner sale: Tuesday, June 7 1988. The Introduction to this book sale is written by Neil Letson of Anniston, Alabama, a very noted writer for Christies, as well as The Smithsonian Magazine, Connoisseur, The Saturday Evening Post, The Atlantic Monthly, etcetera. This Introduction covers the origins of this unique book collection. To date, 2009, this is the largest and most important public auction of a book collection on this subject, which has ever been sold, worldwide. The four different Christie's catalogs entitled, "The Gill Collection of Historical Gem Books", contain an excellent bibliography of books and publications on the subject of gems, gemology and jewelry in English and are much sought after by collectors. This unique document is donated by Joseph O. Gill BSC, GG, FGA, Gemologist, Retired director of Jewelry for Sotheby's North America Do a search for "gems, gemology, jewelry, Gill" to see the many other unique texts that I have contributed to this wonderful web site. SEE - Gill's Historical Index To Gems And Jewelry Online - by Joseph O. Gill 2009 (in WORD 2007) http://www.archive.org/details/GillsHistoricalIndexToGemsAndJewelryOnline-ByJosephO.Gill2009in AND Appendix 1 - Gill's Historical Index To Gems And Jewelry Online - by Joseph O. Gill 2009, http://www.archive.org/details/Appendix1-GillsHistoricalIndexToGemsAndJewelryOnline-ByJosephO