Bibliophemera does pay!

Yesterday, I received in the mail the latest issue of Ephemera News (Volume 27, Number 3, Spring 2009). This is the quarterly publication of the Ephemera Society of America.

In the Auction Preview & Review section, I saw a report on a bibliophemera item that exceeded price expectations at a recent auction.


The ephemera item was an 1840 broadside for G&C Merriam Printers and Booksellers of Springfield, Massachusetts, offered by Scott J. Winslow Associates in Bedford, New Hampshire. This broadside advertises Merriam's stock of Bibles, church music, school books, almanacs, and blank books.


Estimates for the broadside before auction were $1,250 and up. It actually sold for $2,185!

I recently posted here about a Lippincott bill of lading for a shipment of books to G&C Merriam. I mentioned the Merriam-Webster connection with this link to their history. The Ephemera News piece (Winslow I presume) mentions it also--Merriam's gaining the publishing and revision rights to the 1840 edition of Webster's Dictionary.

But looking at the broadside's "BOOKS AND STATIONARY" (SIC) line in the center of the piece, Winslow quips of Merriam's Webster Dictionary acquisition, "Perhaps they could have used it for the broadside's headline that listed "books and stationary."

Comments

  1. Benjamin L ClarkApril 18, 2009 at 9:35 AM

    Wonderful! There does seem to be a lot of G&C Merriam stuff on the market right now...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chuck WhitingApril 27, 2009 at 9:45 AM

    I've noticed that, too. One dealer in particular seems to have come by a trunkload of Merriam papers.

    ReplyDelete

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