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Americana | - 55 items found in your search |
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Athlophoros For rheumatism and Neuralgia
New York Athlophoros Company. Printed by Major, Knapp & Co. 1885 Wraps Very Good
12mo. brochure, with 16 pp. Chromolithograph of jolly man dancing with oversized bottle on front, , and chromo images of old lady, child and angel on back. Silhouette imagery within to illustrate the tall claims of the company producing this cure. Inside rear wrap is an ad vor Itduzit, a cure for piles. Also testimonials within for the credulous. Charming piece of medical, or quack, advertising ephemera. Some wear. Minor marginal staining.
Price:
75.00 USD
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Copy Notebook of Religious Verse from the Mid-Nineteenth Century
N.d., mid-19th century. The notebook has a handsome yellow, green and brown/red marbling on its covers. The 64 pages with, very lightly lined, contain religious and spiritual verse written in a neat, fluid cursive. Many of the poems are credited to the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Are the uncredited poems those of the copyist? Whatever the case, a handsome copy book from the era.
Price:
60.00 USD
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4 |
Demorest's Monthly Magazine: 1866
New York W. Jennings Demorest 1866 Wraps Good
Near miniature, measuring 3.25 by 2.5 inches, or 8 by 6.5 cm. 39 pp. With two color fashion plates, one showing Mme. Demorest's Mirror of Fashions, with a group of women and an infant in whale-boned gowns, and a second depiction a woman in equestrian costume, and many tiny woodcut illustrations of garments and accessories. Also interesting are the advertisements, including a small one for Steinway & Sons. Demorest's Magazine was like Godey's in its mix of fashion, domestic arts, stories, culture and general interest. Standing out is some emhasis on equestriana and sports suitable for women. With a separate dry goods specialty business (Mms Demorest's Emporium of Fashion), there was cross-fertilization in the web of family enterprises. One music score included herein, for "Song of the Fairies", has music written by WIllamina Vienna J. Demorest the first wife of William Jennings Demorest (1822 - 1895), the patriarch. William spearheaded a tleast five successful magazines, and with his second wife built up a clothing manufacturing and merchandising business. He was also a leader of the prohibition movement and once ran for mayor of New York. The cover has considerable wear and creasing, with a minor corner chip. The leaves within are age toned but mostly clean otherwise.
Price:
185.00 USD
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It's All in the Draw
Wraps Very Good
N.d., circa 1890s. Oblong, measuring 24 by 14 cm, 9.5 by 5.5 inches. 20 pp, including cover. Full of caricatures of four poker players and their various expressions and reactions to various hands. On facing pages are witty rhymed captions incorporating in the lettering paraphernalia associated with the game of poker. An unusual item that highlights the emotional of this most psychologically complex of card games. On the second to last page is an advertisement for the United States Cartridge Company, and facing it on the last lear is a reproduction of a print showing hunters around a campfire, with deer strapped to a branch. With no publisher given, it is probable that this was issued by said company. Minor wear to the wrappers, made of heavy card stock, as are all the leaves. A small chip to the surface in a corner of the front cover. Bound with thin cord. The center of three holes has tear to the edge, and the cords, which can be adjusted, are virtually impossible to set just right. Either they make the book too tight or too loose.
Price:
1600.00 USD
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7 |
Life Among the Shakers
New York Wemple & Company Wraps Near Fine
N.d., circa 1880. 36 pp small brochure, including front and back cover which each feature a color lithograph, one of a child, the other, of a Sunday at Mount Lebanon, New York, where the Shakers had a community (today there is a Shaker Museum there). The account of Mary Carr forms just the springboard for a rambling first person discussion of the Shakers, where they have settled, their philosophy, their customs, their industry, with a particular focus on a panacea product created by a Mrs. Speigel which the Shakers have taken to manufacturing. The narrator of this exegesis is uncredited in the brochure. Finally at the end of the brochure comes testimonials for the medicine, which suggests that the brochure was in fact an advertisement or promotion that had the hook of a tangentially related human interest article(s) about the Shakers. On the rear it is indicated that the brochure was "presented by" E. M. Hart of Union Springs, N.Y. In any case, the scarce brochure, a mere 5 by 3 inches in dimensions, is scarce and interesting. Two woodcuts in the text besides the cover illustrations.
Price:
100.00 USD
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8 |
LINDAIR IN PERSON Placard Unequaled, Outstanding Novelty, Sensational, Original Act, In a Class by Itself, Real Balancing, Every Trick Feature, Every Move From a Glance, America's Foremost Gymnastic Talent, A Refined Novelty, Big Drawing Card, etc.
Very Good
A fascinating odd piece of theater ephemera, from an acrobatic Vaudeville perfomer named Lindair, who balanced himself on a chair sitting atop bottles, or balanced a chair on his chin, and many other variations it would seem involving balancing himself, in, on and around a chair. The photos on the placard can be blurred from the necessity in those days of a timed exposure. No date, but circa 1900. The placard or poster measures 56 by 43 cm, 22 by 17 inches. Made of durable, heavy card, it has minor wear around the edges. It would make for a fun, idiosyncratic framed wall hanging.
Price:
400.00 USD
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9 |
Lindy The New Flying Game A Sequel to the Famous Parker Game TOURING
Salem MA Parker Brothers, Inc. 1927 Box Near Fine
With 99 cards and four page instructions manual, this game was issued to celebrate, and cash in on, Lindbergh's famous transatlantic flight. Complete, with cards all in good repair, as is the original yellow box. The instruction brochure has closed tears along folds from years of creasing.
Price:
200.00 USD
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10 |
Little Henry and His Bird with Original Engravings.
New London John R. Bolles 1853 Wraps Good
7 pp, plus title and text on rear of wraps. Illustrations on every text page colored naively in red, green and yellow. Tiny hole bored through pamphlet by text with a letter lost per page, but easy to figure out the incomplete words. Otherwise, typical light soiling, with illustrations rather clean. Soiling to cover.
Price:
40.00 USD
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11 |
New York World's Fair 1939
New York Lord and Thomas 1936 Cloth Very Good
Large elephantine folio sized book (24 by 19 inches) on plans for the upcoming New York World's Fair, which dazzled crowds with its many futuristic designs and conceptions, introduced to the public television and other then stupendous new inventions, and came as the interwar peace was drawing to a close. The prospectus, for that is what it is, is full of bold Art Deco illustrations, some brightly colored. Perhaps most exciting is the double paged overhead panoramic shot of the entire city and beyond. Unpaginated, 34 pp. The boards are dusty, with edge and corner wear. Otherwise, clean and crisp.
Price:
600.00 USD
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12 |
New York World's Fair Colored Miniatures Assorted Views
New York, Chicago, respectively Frank E. Cooper. Curt Teich & Co. 1939 First Edition Fine
Sixteen lovely commemorative views of the Hall of Communications, the Du Pont Building, the Court of Peace, Constitution Mall, a night view of the Lagoon of Nations, the General Electric Building, the Trylon and Perisphere, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Building, the Administration Building, the Aviation Building, the Ford Motor Building, the U.S. Steel Building, the Hall of Marine Transportation, the Palestine Exhibits Building, the General Motors Building, and the Hall of Fashion. The color palette is rich, and the cards, a mere 3.5 by 2.5 inches, are on a sturdy card, with descriptions of the view on their backs. The illustrations manage to convey the exciting modernism of the fair, still fresh today, and we see a fusion of a vigorous futurism with the Art Deco aesthetic that was the prevailing style of the day. The cards are all pristine. The packet in which they are housed has light wear but remains a great relic of the event.
Price:
65.00 USD
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13 |
Office Boy's Diary
St. Paul, MN Brown & Bigelow 1955 First Edition presumed Wraps Very Good
Humorous risque brochure from the Mad Men era of office politics and shenanigans. In its 24 pages of racy photographs and none-too-subtle innuendo, we glimpse an office where nice gams, some show of cleavage and a shapely derrier are all a young woman needs for advancement, where everything is about the perks, the outward displays of rank, and who has time for the actual grind? The brochure's tone is really a print-form version of one of those movie shorts from the forties or fifties in which a jovial, all-knowing narrator has a wisecrack or punchline for each of the succession of small mishaps that relate to a single theme of modern life, and of course the collision of office politics and sex was the raw material for such successful comedic treatments as "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and not a few Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe vehicles. A great conceit of this brochure is that in none of the photographs is a face shown. Thus everything is captured in the anatomy south of the neck. Other than a little ink scribble on the rear cover, this is clean and tight. The brochure is 15 by 11.5 cm, or 6 by 4.25 inches.
Price:
125.00 USD
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14 |
Picnic Party. Scroll Puzzle
New York McLoughlin Brothers 1894 First Edition Very Good
The chromolithographic scene in the puzzle and on the box lid is of a bucolic summer picnic of children in the country. Box is 14.5 by 10 by 1.75 inches, and the puzzle proper is 24 by 12 inches. The puzzle is complete and clean. The box image has light soiling throughout and minor blisering by the lettering below. The sides of the box have some small losses and chips to the striped paper, with wood exposed in a few spots. The soiling on the paper strips is heavier here than above. Interior of the box has had a lip installed around the perimeter in order to keep the lid in place.
Price:
475.00 USD
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15 |
Poster for Mills Novelty Company. World's Largest Manufacturer of Coin Operated Machines.
Chicago Very Good
N.d., circa early 1940s. The Mills Novelty Company was once the world's largest manufacturer of coin operated machines, which include slot machines, jukeboxes and vending machines. The company can trace its origins to the 1880s, and in a vastly different form parts of the company survive to this day, and in fact there is still a business named Mills Novelty Company. Pictured on the poster are six colorful machines: the Silent Bell, the Golden Bell, the Mystery Front Vender, the Mystery Bell, the Extrraordinary Front Vender and finally the Gooseneck Skyscraper Vender. Now attractively mounted and matted in a complementary brown card. Some light soiling. Two very inconspicuous tack holes. A corner chip now hidden under the matting.
Price:
875.00 USD
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16 |
See America First. Every Player Your Partner.
Minneapolis (and Cincinnati, respectively) Chas. S. Clark Co., The U.S. Playing Card Co. Fine
N.d., circa late 1920s. A boxed set of scorecards for progressive bridge, a form of social bridge tailored for parties with more than four players but not necessarily as serious as duplicate bridge. The box comes with four basic score cards, each of which is folded, wih the front featuring a quintessential, stylized, twenties flapper posing as she nonchalantly peers at a dramatic panorama of one of four national parks -- the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, Yosemite Valley or Yellowstone Park. These cards measure 7.25 by 3.75 inches closed. In addition, there are eight smaller round cards and eight square cards, all of which flap open, and all meant to look like luggage when closed, with strings attached from which they can dangle. These cards were meant as the individual player's score card, with a playful "See America First" Tally and a system of pairing players based on what city they are from. How all the cards related to one another, and the specifics of Progressive Bridge, are too complicated to explain in this description. What matters is that the scorecard box is almost certainly complete, notwithstanding the discrepancy in card number, as the set was intended for four tables, and there is no room in the box for additional large cards, and also, everything is in unused, fine condition, and finally, this is a handsome relic from when the country, indeed the world, was mad about the newly invented game and when leisure travel, with the national parks among the most popular destinations, was being embraced by millions for the first time.
Price:
125.00 USD
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17 |
The Forget-Me-Not Songster; Containing A Choice Collection of Old Ballad Songs as sung by our Grandmothers. Embellished with Numerous Engravings.
Boston J. S. Locke & Co. Full Morocco Very Good
N.d., circa 1840s. 256 pp. 32mo, 11.5 by 8 cm, 4.5 by 3 inches. Some early Americana songs -- "The New York Trader", "The New York Fireman", "Paul Jones", "Taxation of America", "The Battle of Baltimore" and even "The Star Spangled Banner" -- mixed in with older fare such as "Barbara Allan" or "The Boys of Kilkenny". Here one can glean from song the solidifying national identity while the folkish wafts from the old country, meaning then the British Isles, including Ireland, were still formidable, and the particular sound of American English was coalescing. The woodcuts, most postage stamp in size with a few full or half page, lend some humor on occasion. The illustrations can mostly be described as naive in style. There is light soilage scattered throughout. The text is always clear. Later full calf is sturdy and attactive. With modern marbled endpapers.
Price:
175.00 USD
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The Riley Elevated Railway System
Boston W. S. Best & Co., printer for The Riley Railway Construction Company 1887 First Edition Thick card bound with two brass clasps Very Good
A rare piece of illustrated Bostoniana and railroad ephemera. Including several items, for this was a working set of documents at one time. The primary document, carrying the title given above, is a prospectus for a proposed subway system to run through Boston. Also included are a 19 page transcript of an 1891 meeting considering this proposed system, and two other prior reports. The prospectus is oblong, 11 by 14 inches, 28 by 36 cm. Unpaginated. Seven leaves of text, 32 plates. A promotional brochure for a proposed elevated railway system to run through Boston. The Riley system was a single post system; in other words, the tracks would be held aloft by a single post, much like a monorail. The brochure boasts how this system is economical, allows for greater light, and lends itself to being dressed up ornamentally. For Boston, the system offered the advantage of being well-suited to the narrower streets. Also, as a system run on electricity, it would offer advantages of cleanliness and quiet. At the time of this proposal, Boston had only horse-drawn streetcar lines. This company lost out on its bid for the electrical system to Thomson-Houston, and little was heard of the company afterward, meaning it soon went out of business. Still, the prospectus offers a great glimpse at a piece of transportation history. Of the 32 plates, six picture the system running through city streets, the seaside or a mountainous location. The remainder of the plates show the cars, including are more technical drawings of the system itself, including a cross-section of the railway cars themselves. A few closed tears of the leaves. The wraps have soiling, with scuff marks and a small hole on the spine.
Price:
2800.00 USD
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