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The Virtuoso's Companion

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:280.00 USD Estimated At:400.00 USD
The Virtuoso's Companion
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Denton, M. THE VIRTUOSO'S COMPANION, AND COIN COLLECTOR'S GUIDE. London: M. Denton, 1795-96. The first four volumes, bound in one. 12mo, 19th-century brown half calf with marbled boards; spine with four raised bands, ruled and decorated in blind; red morocco spine label, gilt; marbled endpapers; all page edges red. calf. Finely engraved frontispiece; four engraved titles; 120 finely engraved plates, each depicting both sides of four tokens; 15, (1) page index. Slight rubbing, else a fine copy. An attractive copy of the first four volumes. Issued serially over several years, complete sets of this, the only comprehensive early work depicting 18th-century English tokens, are today decidedly rare. The preface proposed to issue "fac-similes of four hundred and eighty different Coins, in four Volumes twelves, with an elegant frontispiece, at the price of twenty shillings." After the four volumes here present had appeared, such a wealth of tokens remained un-illustrated that it was decided to extend the series to eight volumes. Initiated by Denton, the last two parts were published by Thomas Prattent. The work appeared at ten- to fourteen-day intervals in printed wrappers, price sixpence: twelve tokens of three plates comprising a number. Given the method of distribution, the change in publisher (many sets are comprised of only the first 180 plates), and the proclivity of early collectors to cut up plates to illustrate other books (the famous Conder work, for example), it is not surprising that few complete sets have survived.