USIANA.com is an independent, collector-focused platform for rare books, paper, ephemera, fine prints, and cultural objects, designed as a curated gateway to the auctions conducted by Waterbury Auction Gallery. While AuctionNinja handles bidding, registration, and logistics, USIANA provides the editorial and visual layer that highlights historically and artistically significant material for beginners and serious collectors.
The site is operated jointly by Donato “Dan” Gaeta, proprietor of John Bale Books, and Denis Gouey, bookbinder and researcher. Together, they combine deep trade experience with scholarly attention to detail, institutional and private collecting, and hands-on engagement with historical books and manuscripts.
Our philosophy is straightforward: books belong in collectors’ hands at realistic prices. For that reason, we deliberately start bidding at low opening prices. We do not inflate estimates or force outcomes — we let the market decide. This transparent, no-reserve approach encourages broad participation, genuine price discovery, and fair opportunity for all bidders.
The strength of this model is reflected in our community: over 70% of our bidders are repeat customers. Many return sale after sale, not only because of pricing, but because of trust — trust in accurate descriptions, honest presentation, and respectful engagement with both material and collectors.
USIANA mirrors and expands upon listings from Waterbury Auction Gallery by offering:
- Clear, collector-oriented presentation pages highlighting representative lots.
- Integrated links back to full catalogs on AuctionNinja.
- Curated photography, historical context, and descriptive insight that go beyond standard auction listings.
We also provide in-house shipping, an assurance of careful packaging and prompt fulfillment — a level of service that many regional houses do not offer.
Dan Gaeta brings decades of experience as a bookseller and dealer, with particular strengths in Americana, literature, and general antiquarian material. Through John Bale Books, he has worked extensively with collectors, libraries, and auction houses, emphasizing meticulous description and market knowledge.
Denis Gouey contributes a background rooted in bookbinding and historical research, with a long-standing interest in manuscripts, provenance, and the physical history of books. His work bridges scholarship and practice, combining archival research with an understanding of structure, binding, and production.
USIANA.com reflects this shared approach — practical, informed, and independent. It exists as both a resource and a venue for collectors, researchers, and anyone passionate about the survival, circulation, and continuing relevance of books and related material.
- 1759 Manuscript ledger of Gaud estate seizure and sale, Russey, Bailliage d’Ornans, 43,000 livres
- 1770 Manuscript Course on rhetoric
- 18th-century French manuscript on human anatomy and surgical practice
- 1919 humoristic 22 pages manuscript short essay on watercolor
- A Christian volume printed in Arabic
- AB Bookman’s Weekly – a dinosaur of book collecting
- About Us
- An important association copy in a fine embossed binding
- Are you a young reader? 🚸
- Auction Titles – Auction
- Book Collecting Trends in 2025
- Book Condition and Price: A Comparison to Everyday Objects
- Carefully crafted manuscript The Senate of Nice 1614-1792
- Circa 1520 placard, Von wegen der Gotzlesterung or Concerning Blasphemy
- Circa 1900, Archive Of 100 Plus Astronomical Glass Negative Plates, Harvard Observatory In Arequipa, Peru
- Contact
- Dietrich
- Empire, Education, and Sacrifice: Charterhouse, the Duke of Devonshire Prize, and the Short Life of Denis Percival Beauchamp Taylor
- Exploring the World of Rare Books
- First Edition, First Issue of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852
- Guitarist Alfred Cottin and an Unrecorded Carte de Visite, 1887
- Hand Colored Petit Livre d’Heures, a small book of hours.
- Heures choisies des Dames Chrétiennes, bound by Lesort
- Home
- Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Willart de Grecourt
- Manuscript CANONS of PRIMES for every DAY of the YEAR
- Manuscript collection of compliments and gallant words. Circa 1750.
- Manuscript Course in External Pathology, [c. 1800]
- Manuscript school book of Rachie A. Martin of State Normal School, Millersville
- Marie de Turenne “For the Return of Her Dear Papa” – Little Handwritten notebook
- Military exploits of Prince Maurice of Nassau, 1st ed. in French; Fairfax/Osterley Park copy, with notes attrib. to Sir Walter Raleigh.
- Original Illustration by E. Benson Knipe, Girl with Squirrel
- Pageant Book Store: from Book Row to East Village — the living history of New York’s print trade
- Preserving Knowledge: Our Commitment to Rescuing Unmarketable Books 😇
- Recent acquisitions
- Reflections on previous sales
- Search the site
- Sell us your Books
- Short listings for our auctions
- Susan’s Album Amicorum 1920-23, drawings, watercolors, teachers and peers sentiments
- The Book Art of Ignasi Vidal i Molné
- The History of New York’s Book Row
- The trend in book selling Today
- The writings of Jean Baptiste Adrien Durand, former infantry officer and native of Dieppe
- Trends in book collecting
- Trips to the Continent of Europe As seen by us, diaries from a 1902 Grand Tour
- Waterbury Auction Gallery Proudly Sponsors
- We provide in house shipping 🚚
- Why everything starts at ten dollars at our weekly auctions
- [SOLD] Collected Sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay inscribed to Margaret Armstrong