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Bass's Copy of the 1848 Pembroke Sale

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 USD
Bass's Copy of the 1848 Pembroke Sale
A buyer’s premium of 18% will be added to the cost of all lots purchased by absentee bidders. The premium is reduced to 15% for floor bidders. See shipping info and full terms.
Sotheby & Co., S. Leigh. CATALOGUE OF THE ENTIRE PEMBROKE COLLECTION OF GREEK, ROMAN, ENGLISH, SCOTCH, IRISH, AND FOREIGN MEDIAEVAL COINS AND MEDALS. London, July 31-Aug. (19), 1848. Small 8vo, contemporary green quarter sheep; spine decorated and lettered in gilt; marbled page edges. (2), 325, (1) pages; 1500 lots; neatly handpriced throughout with all of the buyers' initials or abbreviated names, with an alphabetized manuscript key at the end; manuscript index also tipped in. Manuscript biography of Pembroke on front pastedown. Binding worn, with back cover loose; internally fine in a restorable period binding. Finely engraved ex libris Clement Ferguson; printed label of George Olcott. Sold in the 1968 Colby Ritzman sale to the Smithsonian Institution and, according to a typewritten label on the rear pastedown, in November of that year "exchang(ed) with Smithsonian for Riddell." Illustrations of this famous collection, belonging to Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, were published a century earlier, in 1746, including the first known engravings of American colonial coins, including the Lord Baltimore six pence and groat, Massachusetts Willow Tree threepence, sixpence and shilling, Oak Tree twopence, Carolina Elephant token and the infamous Good Samaritan shilling. This last coin is described in the catalogue at hand as follows: "By the dextrous use of a punch, some artist has contrived to produce on this rubbed coin, a worn representation of the group of the Good Samaritan, and the words FAC. SIMILE., which has given rise to much discussion." Manville & Robertson page 91: "Greek and perhaps other series cat. by T. Burgon." Ex Harry W. Bass, Jr. library, with his bookplate.