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1875 CROSBY IN NOVA CONSTELLATIO BINDING

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:1,500.00 USD Estimated At:2,500.00 USD
1875 CROSBY IN NOVA CONSTELLATIO BINDING
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Crosby, Sylvester S. THE EARLY COINS OF AMERICA; AND THE LAWS GOVERNING THEIR ISSUE. COMPRISING ALSO DESCRIPTIONS OF THE WASHINGTON PIECES, THE ANGLO-AMERICAN TOKENS, MANY PIECES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN, OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES, AND THE FIRST PATTERNS OF THE UNITED STATES MINT. Boston: Published by the Author, 1875. 4to, original brown half morocco, gilt; pebbled cloth sides with gilt impression of the Nova Contellatio “mark” on front; speckled page edges; marbled endpapers. (2), v, (5), (11)–381, (1) pages; 110 wood engravings in the text; 2 folding heliotype manuscript facsimiles; 10 fine heliotype plates of coins and tokens with original tissue guards. Light rubbing; near fine. Arguably the best, and certainly the most enduring, work on American numismatics ever written. Sylvester Sage Crosby began gathering information for his magnum opus in the late 1860s. Nominally the head of a committee of six appointed by the New England Numismatic and Archæological Society to publish a work on early American coinage, he soon found himself alone in that pursuit. Not only was the research and composition of the work done almost entirely by Crosby, ultimately he also had to publish it. “It is truly the keystone to any library of American coinage.” — Eric P. Newman. Copies encountered with the gilt impression of the Nova Constellatio “mark” on the front cover were specially bound for the author, and it is a fitting binding for such a work. This copy is a bit unusual, in that most Nova Constellatio bindings seen by this cataloguer are in black leather, not brown. State with overprinted coin numbers on Plates IV and V. Coin 15a on Plate VII hand-numbered in pencil, apparently as always. Without the handwritten correction, often seen, to Miss Eliza Susan Quincy’s name in the subscribers’ list on page 381. Attinelli 105. Clain-Stefanelli 12115*. Davis 291. Grierson 218. Sigler 603. Ex George Olcott, with his engraved bookplate. Olcott was one of the authors of The Lincoln Centennial Medal (1908) and his collection was sold in 1916 by Tom Elder.