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ORIGINAL 1875 CROSBY

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:1,300.00 USD Estimated At:2,250.00 USD
ORIGINAL 1875 CROSBY
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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, contemporary red three-quarter morocco, gilt; spine with five raised bands, ruled, lettered and decorated in gilt; marbled sides; marbled page edges; decorative 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; binder’s leaves added. Signatures of five different owners, mostly with dates of acquisition, on the first blank. Binding a bit rubbed; near fine. An attractive copy of what is 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. 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. A charming example. Attinelli 105. Clain-Stefanelli 12115*. Davis 291. Grierson 218. Sigler 603. Ex Del Bland library.