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AMERICAN NUMISMATICAL MANUAL

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 USD
AMERICAN NUMISMATICAL MANUAL
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Dickeson, Montroville Wilson. THE AMERICAN NUMISMATICAL MANUAL OF THE CURRENCY OR MONEY OF THE ABORIGINES, AND COLONIAL, STATE, AND UNITED STATES COINS. WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES OF EACH COIN OR SERIES. Philadelphia, 1859. First edition. 4to, original blindstamped brown cloth; handsome impression in gilt of an 1849 double eagle on the upper cover, in blind on the rear cover. x, (11)–256 pages; handsome lithographic portrait of the author printed in two colors; frontispiece of the Libertas Americana medal; text illustrations; 19 attractive lithographic plates of coins and currency printed in colors and metallic tints. Spine faded and worn, but a sound, clean, well above-average example. Ex John W. Adams Library. The first work covering the entire range of American numismatics. Dickeson was by nature a popularizer and showman. He toured the country for several years in the early 1850s lecturing on North American archeology and excavating Indian mounds. His lecture was enhanced by a painting, 348 feet long and over seven feet high entitled Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley. It was meant to be rolled up on two poles, then unrolled like a film strip to reveal various historical and archeological scenes pertinent to the lecture. His Numismatic(al) Manual (the al was dropped after the first edition), while not so spectacular, was clearly intended to reach a mass market. Handsome in format and visual presentation, it was distributed by a major publisher of the day and written in an authoritative manner. Dickeson even envisaged, “if it should be approved, to prepare an edition for the use of schools.” Until the appearance of Breen’s magnum opus in 1988, it remained the only comprehensive work on American numismatics ever published. Ex Kolbe Sale 86, lot 479.