John Titford , Super Sleuth On The Bookplate Trail

Click On Image to Enlarge Brain North Lee wrote an excellent book about 18th century name labels , Early Printed Book Labels. That is where I looked first when this very distinctive name label arrived. No bells started to ring so I went to a second reference by Elizabeth Carroll Reilly called Colonial American Printer's Ornaments & Illustrations . It also did not contain the answer I was looking for. Is the Edward Bass , Jun. plate American or English?
Google was not much help either so I sent an Email to John Titford asking if the designation Jun. was used frequently in 18th century England or was it primarily used in America.
John's response was precisely what I was looking for and it is reproduced below.
Thank you John for your assistance.


Fulham Scan Mentioned Below -Click on Image to Enlarge

Dear Lew ,

Thanks for the challenge!

Certainly in recent times the use of "Jr" or "Jun" or "Lewis Jaffe III" and such has been almost entirely an American habit, rarely seen in Britain.

Back in the eighteenth century the Brits were fonder of using "Jun" than they are now - partly at times because of the habit of using the paternal grandfather as godfather for a first-born male child, and giving the child his name in honour, so that many male first cousins would have the same Christian name as their grandfather. Some kind of separation was called for. Usually "Senr" and "Jun" distinguished between father and son, but not always.

But the real giveaway on your fine label, surely, is the spelling of "HONOR" - the kind of spelling (the Brits use the French version "HONOUR") advocated by the influential Mr Webster, if I'm not mistaken? This must surely make it an American label?

So who was Edward Bass, Jun? I can give you two scenarios, of which the second is much more likely.

1. "Virginia wills and administrations 1632-1800" by C Torrance (1930) includes a reference to an Edward Bass of Amelia County, who left a will in 1795.

The printed census returns for Virginia, 1790 (etc), include:

Amelia County. 1782: Edward Bass. Head of Household. Three whites, 40 blacks; 1785: One white soul; eleven dwellings; four other buildings.
Chesterfield County 1783. Edward Bass. 6 whites, 6 blacks.

2. Here is a more likely candidate:

In "A list of emigrant ministers to America 1690-1811" by Gerald Fothergill (1904) we find:

Bass,Edward.New England June 10th,1752.Money Book,44-33 (from the records of the Bishop of Lindon;meaning?)First Bishop of Massachusetts;born Dorchester,November 23,1726;died September10,1803(Drake)

This leads us to an index to the 1800 census for Massachusetts, edited by E P Bentley (1978), where we read:
Bass, Edward Jr. Essex. 304.
Bass, Edward, R.R. (`Right Reverend'?), Bishop, Essex 304.
("304" refers to the page number of the schedule).

So what do you think? It's quite likely, I'd say, that this label belonged to Edward Bass, junior, son of Edward Bass, Bishop of Massachusetts. What more likely than a Bishop's son to have a collection of books that needed labelling?

Because of Bishop Edward's eminence, there are quite a few references to him in "The Fulham Papers in the Lambeth Palace Library; American colonial section calendar and indexes' by W W Manross (1965). Most are of little use, but see attached for one interesting reference.

( See Fulham Scan Above)

This is a special mid-week posting. See you all on Sunday.

This week in Bookplates 8/29/2009

Every month I receive a list of bookplates for sale from Wolfgang Rieger. http://www.antiquariat-rieger.de/neueexlibris.htm My purchases are infrequent since I do not actively collect European bookplates . This morning I did purchase this Jack Dempsey plate to add to my group of bookplates from the libraries of famous people. The plate was designed by Walter Helfenbein in 1923. It is illustrated on p.238 in The World Of Exlibris Volume 2. There is a strong probability that this is a "pseudo exlibris " . That is, a plate designed without the knowledge or consent of the owner. I like the plate and do not really want to know if Jack Dempsey ever saw it. On the other hand, if you have proof positive that Jack Dempsey actually used it , let me know.

I have a bookplate puzzle.Who was William Benjamin Munson ? Before you go rushing over to Google let me mention that the most prominent individual you will find with this name was a bigger than life Texas attorney/ railroad tycoon. At first I thought he was the owner of this plate but on closer inspection I found hidden monkeys in the design and it doesn't fit the Texan's profile as I understand it.

Click On Image To Enlarge

I received a letter from a new collector asking how to find bookplates not attached to a book. This was my response :

Here are some ways to obtain unattached bookplates :

Find a hand bookbinder, especially one who has been in business for many years.
They often hold onto loose bookplates and might be willing to sell them to an enthusiastic new collector.

If you join the bookplate society you will eventually meet other collectors who have bookplates for sale or exchange.

Talk to your local used bookseller.

Talk to your local librarian

Look on Ebay

Go to library book sales

Join the Exlibris group at Yahoo

Look up bookplate removal on Google if you find a book with a bookplate and want to remove it .

Send me your mailing address and I will send you a few bookplates.

Good luck in your quest.

See you all next week.

Bookplate News From Around The World

I have never come away from Papermania without a few interesting items and yesterday was no exception. Typographical plates with printers devices are always of interest so I purchased this one by an unknown designer. The biggest surprise was a treasure trove of watch papers from the early 19th century. The G.Brown watch paper was engraved by Hugh Anderson .

Claus Wittal has just sent out his online sales catalog.It is well laid out and you can make selections by artist and theme. Here is a link:

http://www.exlibrisart.com/

Fellow bookplate collector John Titford has just completed a dictionary of British Surnames which can be pre-ordered at Amazon. Here is some general information:

The Penguin Dictionary of British Surnames by John Titford is a guide to the surnames that offer a unique insight into the place of origin, the occupations -and even the personality traits - of our ancestors.
- Contains more than 10,000 surnames, from Abbatt to Zouch
- Explains how our names reflect Britain’s past
- Covers surnames taken from places, occupations, nicknames and first names
- Includes the development and variation of many names

Here is a link to be notified when the book is published.

http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Dictionary-British-Surnames/dp/0141023201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251030502&sr=1-1

That's about it for now.

Kindles and Kipling

The Hubbard plate illustrated below fits into a special category in which you start muttering. " I know that image , it's illustrated in one of my reference books but damn it I can't figure out which one " If you recognize the plate please let me know. Click On Images To Enlarge
The amateurish looking plate shown below was designed by Rudyard Kipling for Dorothy Doubleday , his publisher's daughter. It has astrological zodiac symbols and is supposed to be a punning pictorial . Ref. P.112 British Bookplates A Pictorial History by Brian North Lee

It is always gratifying to be mentioned in other peoples blogs.

Here are two links mentioning my Sunday outpourings and discussing Kindle. Some very sensitive toes must have been stepped on by questioning the wisdom of spending $400.00 for a Kindle (The price has now been reduced to $299.00) .The emotional comments from the pro Kindle faction were quite interesting. I suspect it is a generational thing. Personally I think Kindle is a waste of money at any price.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/

http://ohtheresjustnotelling.blogspot.com/2009/08/lost-and-found-or-where-do-i-put.html

I hope to see some of you next week at Papermania.

Olive Percival plus A Few More Hamill Plates

Here are two more Hamill plates in addition to the ones posted last week. The Ariel plate is tiny


1 inch wide by 1 1/2 inches high. Does anyone out there know who designed it ?

Olive Percival was among other things a bookplate collector and a bookplate designer who lived in California. Quite honestly , I never knew much about her until I recently purchased a Christmas Card she designed in 1920. It amused me so I did some research.

Jim Lewis reminded me that the 1995 Yearbook of The American Society had an excellent article about Olive Percival written by Audrey Arellanes.

Here is a link which outlines her many interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Percival

Papermania is coming up again in about two weeks.It is one of the best east coast ephemera shows and well worth the trip to Hartford Conn.

Here is a link:

http://www.papermaniaplus.com/

Here is a link to another new bookplate blog :

http://exlibriscollection.blogspot.com/

One last thing before I sign off. Here is a way to fine tune Google so that your bookplate research is much more efficient. Google has a subset called Google books. If you put E.D. French into Google you find out he was in the make up department for Terminator 2 , a location scout, and is listed in Linkedin. If you do the same search in Google books you find reference to his participation in a loan exhibit of bookplates held in Boston.

See you next week.

Bookplates For The Hamill Family

Click on Images To Enlarge" Although I am not a bookplate collector I certainly do appreciate them. I saw your recent posting and because I thought you might just find it interesting have attached photos of the wedding invitation for Margaret Van Nest Smith to George Duryee in 1896. The invitation was sent to and used by William Church, an All American football player at Princeton."
Thank you, Jacob Lurie for sending this additional information in response to last week's posting.

I have , over the years acquired bookplates used by the Hamill family of Illinois and am expecting several more from a recent exchange. They will be posted next week.
The skeleton plate on the left was designed by Warren Chappell.
The two centaurs on the right were done by Norman Forgue of The Black Cat Press

Alfred E. Hamill , his wife Clarice and many family members had bookplates designed by the leading designers of the twentieth century.
Mr. Hamill was a Chicago and Lake Forest investment banker and president of the Newberry Library Board of Trustees, ( 1929 to 1953).
He was born in Chicago in 1883 , graduated from Yale University in 1905, and resided in Lake Forest, Illinois. His business career began at the Northern Trust Company and ended at Goldman, Sachs, and Company. He was a trustee of the Presbyterian Hospital , the Chicago Child Care Society, vice-president of the Chicago Art Institute, and president of the Lake Forest Public Library . Mrs Hamill was a book designer and illustrator.
The Centaur plate on the left was done by Thomas Maitland Cleland.
Clarice Hamill was a book illustrator so I am assuming she designed her own bookplate



The Sterling Morton Hamill plate was designed by Ernst Puehler.
The Centaur plate on the right is a wood cut by Joseph Low

Here are two links you may find interesting:

If you want to see the Holy Grail of bookplate collecting follow this link

http://brandeisspecialcollections.blogspot.com/2009/04/first-bookplate.html

Simon Brett is a highly acclaimed artist whose wood engraved bookplates are remarkable.

http://www.simonbrett-woodengraver.co.uk/bookplates.htm

See you next week.

8/3/2009 This was just received.

Clarice Walther Hamill was also a collector, and formed a very fine collection of miniature books. I bought a number of them, many very early, from Francis Hamill & Margery Barker. I was an associate of Hamill & Barker in the 1970's. In my own collection are two plates you lack.. Both are calligraphic in style, one about 2 by 1 3/4 inches; the other very tiny. For her miniature books. Think they were designed by the Chicago artist and master calligrapher James Hayes. Also I have a small child's plate in color of an angel - for one Ariel Hamill.
Enjoying your bookplate blog.
All the best,
Richard Cady, Prescott, AZ.

The Birth Of A Bookplate

I remember putting my children's first finger paintings on the refrigerator . It was my intention to save them for posterity.Over the years the paper turned yellow and eventually disappeared. That's what happens to most of us I guess. The reason it comes to mind is that in the bookplate world the same thing happens.Old memories wind up in the Staten Island landfill. This bookplate archive is unique in that some old memories survived the ravages of time.
This is a photo of Margaret Van Nest Smith taken in 1882. In 1896 she married George Van Wagenen Duryee. They had a home in Saranac Lake , New York where E. D. French , the foremost American bookplate engraver also had a studio.

This is an early sketch of the proposed bookplate done on the back of an envelope postmarked 1899. This and the initial designs were done by Mrs.Van Nest Duryee.

These are some early tissue sketches done by E. D. French.

Further along in the design process these are sketches and early working proofs

The first trial proof done in 1899

The completed signed proof.

That's about all I have to say right now. See you next week.

This Week in Bookplates 7/19/2009

Sometimes I forget, but one of things I try to ask booksellers is whether they have a box of ephemera. This week I visited a shop in Doylestown ,Pennsylvania and found this bit of ephemera done by Leonard Baskin. It has the same image he used on a bookplate for Frederick Cleveland Mitchell ( Fern & O'Sullivan #385 )* Here are a few more Baskin bookplates. *I do not know of any complete checklist of Baskin bookplates. The Complete Prints Of Leonard Baskin by Alan Fern and Judith O'Sullivan is an excellent reference and includes some of his bookplates .

Click On Images to Enlarge

If you have any Baskin bookplates for sale or exchange I would like to hear from you.

One of the things that amused me in Doylestown was a law office I passed on South Clinton St.

The name of the firm and I kid thee not is Angst &Angst
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I received this announcement from fellow bookplate enthusiast Jim Lewis I have just had a miniature book 3" X 2" printed letterpress and hand-made paper by the Ascensius Press in Maine. It is limited to 50 copies and the binding is by Gray Parrot, also of Maine. The subject of the book is the Estelle Doheny leather bookplate and in each copy of the book is tipped an original example of the plate.

They are $50 each and copies can be ordered from
Jim Lewis
10 Chestnut St. #2110
Exeter, NH 03833
Please send check or cash in US$ only.

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Fellow collector Jose Vicente De Braganca has an excellent bookplate blog. Here are some of his postings on American bookplates.

http://bookplate-jvarnoso.blogspot.com/search/label/American%20Bookplates

That's about it for this posting. See you next week.

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Universal Bookplates/Goodbye Twitter

Universal bookplates enable you to insert your own name . They are affordable and available on line or at major bookstores. Daniel Mitsui sent me a cleverly designed universal bookplate and yes there is only one path from start to finish.You can see several of his designs at http://www.danielmitsui.com/
Once I started thinking about the subject I decided to select some of my favorites from this category.Here goes:
This art-deco plate is at the top of the list.

The one below was done by Rustcraft

The one below by Antioch Bookplate Company was given to my brother Arnold at his Bar-Mitzvah by our mother.

The next three are circa 1840

This week I pulled the plug on my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Call me a Luddite but Twitter never made sense to me and Facebook just seemed too contrived for me .

See you next week.

Loose Boards , Loose Screws and Watch Papers

Loose Boards- I often ask dealers if they have a box of loose boards . sometimes they are a good source for finding bookplates.It paid off yesterday . I found a loose board with a covered bookplate. The image below was the way the loose board appeared before I soaked off the Berkeley Divinity School plate and exposed the armorial plate for the third Lord Carbery whose surname is Evans(F9980).

When I got home my watch papers had arrived and I started examining them .Watch papers were printed on larger sheets with multiple copies which could be cut to size as needed. The jewelers noted the repair date on the reverse side before inserting placing them into the watch.It reminds me of the dated lube stickers mechanics put on your car door frame. New watch papers were put in without removing the old ones and the dated paper trail is very helpful.

The reverse side of the Stowell watch paper

This very crude print was of particular interest. From a quick Google search I learned that Ireland Depot , Mass. was active from 1847 to 1850.

"The first post office in the area was called Ireland and was established June 3, 1822, with Martin Chapin as first postmaster. It was discontinued in 1883. Another post office called Ireland Depot was established February 26, 1847, with John M. Chapin as first postmaster and had its name changed to Holyoke (with George Whittle as first postmaster) March 14, 1850."

My guess is that Mr. Taber did the crude engraving himself.

Loose Screws- When I got home Mary informed me that Sarah Palin had resigned as governor of Alaska. Many of the pundits seem to think she has a few loose screws. My take is completely different. I suppose it is possible another shoe will drop:Palin and Larry Craig are Facebook buddies or something beyond my imagination; however, I think the decision was driven by economics. Her salary as governor is $150,000 per year. On the lecture circuit she can get that in one evening. In addition, her book deal will bring in many millions. This will also enable her to spend more time with her family and pursue whatever her goals might be. It makes good sense to me .

See you next week

Booth Tarkington's Bookplates

Click On Images To Enlarge Booth Tarkington had three bookplates that I am aware of.
The one below was designed by Jack Stark

The one below was designed by Anna Hasselman

Here are some links that should be of interest :

Fellow collector Richard Schimmelpfeng has put together an impressive list of duplicate bookplate books which are for sale . Many items on the list are priced at $15.00 plus postage. If you contact him he will send you the complete list. His email is Crwalker69@hotmail.com

Fellow collector Jim Lewis sent me this link to the digital bookplate collection at Winterthur.

It contains many 18th century American bookplates.

http://content.winterthur.org/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2FBookplates

I received an online bookplate catalog from Wolfgang Rieger.

http://www.antiquariat-rieger.de/neueexlibris.htm

Here is a blog about the bookplates of Joseph Gleeson- White

http://callumjames.blogspot.com/2009/06/ex-libris-joseph-gleeson-white.html

Last , but not least Jim Keenan has launched a new blog to attract new members for the American Society of Bookplate Collectors And Designers

Http://exlibrischronicle.blogspot.com

See you next week.