A. Stargardt GmbH & Co. KG is a Berlin-based antiquarian bookshop and auction house that specializes in autograph and manuscript trading.
Günther Mecklenburg, who directed the company from 1924 to the mid 1970s, is the author of Vom Autographensammeln, regarded as the fundamental guide to autograph trading and its history in the German-speaking countries, and first president of the Association of German Antiquarian Booksellers (Verband Deutscher Antiquare, VDA).
[2] Joseph A. Stargardt began organizing autograph auctions in 1859[4] and, with the exception of World Wars I and II, the company has done so regularly ever since.
The highest hammer price at a Stargardt auction, 500,000 Euros, was paid in 2015 for the autograph manuscript of George Frideric Handel’s chamber trio “Se tu non lasci amore” (HWV 201a) from 1708.
[10] In 2011, 111 letters and cards from Franz Kafka to his sister Ottla were conveyed to the German Literature Archive in Marbach and the Bodleian Library in Oxford.