Kolbe & Fanning
Auction 159 6 Mar 2021
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Largely Unpublished Materials on the Monetary Competition of 1791
Margolis, Richard. NOTES ON THE FRENCH MONETARY COMPETITION OF 1791. Two ruled composition notebooks, the first bound in later brown half morocco, spine lettered in gilt, the second in the original tape-backed printed cardboard covers. The first notebook consists of 91 leaves, which have been numbered 1–90 on the rectos and 1a–90a on the versos, with the first leaf serving as a title page and frontispiece. Every one of the resulting 182 pages includes handwritten text or illustrations, or frequently both. The text of the first volume is primarily given to copying relevant information from literally hundreds of sale catalogues as well as from various numismatic books and articles. Much of this material is annotated by Margolis, with notes on the importance of the material as well as its accuracy. A bibliography is provided as well. Relevant details taken from his extensive correspondence is also cited, particularly letters from Raoul Kraft. Later photocopies and printouts are laid in. The second notebook consists of 80 leaves (160 pages), of which only 64 pages were used, strongly indicating that this was the final notebook used on this particular project. It continues from the first in much the same vein, recording various appearances of the essays associated with the 1791 competition and drawing conclusions from them. Having increasingly exhausted the supply of older catalogues containing relevant material, Margolis is here responding mostly to more recent offerings. In addition to extensive handwritten text, much of which was revisited over the years and revised, augmented and occasionally corrected, the notebooks include numerous illustrations, some of them photocopies, but many of them cut to size from various coin catalogues and pasted in place. In addition to halftone illustrations, the notebooks contain photographically printed collotypes depicting coins and even original photographic prints. In some cases, illustrations and other materials that have been pasted into place are starting to come loose (though they are generally intact), but overall the notebooks are in very good or better condition. The 1791 French Monetary Competition was a subject of recurring interest to Richard Margolis, who kept notes about the competition itself and the essays prepared for it over the course of many years in these composition notebooks. It is difficult to date the notebooks to a particular time period, though we can say that the first notebook was bound in 1977 (suggesting that it was full by that point). The amount of information gathered together in these notebooks is remarkable. Margolis's natural handwriting was very small, making it possible for him to fit quite a bit on a page. The devotion exhibited by him to this project, maintained over the course of decades, is very impressive, and there is much here that is of considerable interest to the specialist.
Margolis, Richard. NOTES ON THE FRENCH MONETARY COMPETITION OF 1791. Two ruled composition notebooks, the first bound in later brown half morocco, spine lettered in gilt, the second in the original tape-backed printed cardboard covers. The first notebook consists of 91 leaves, which have been numbered 1–90 on the rectos and 1a–90a on the versos, with the first leaf serving as a title page and frontispiece. Every one of the resulting 182 pages includes handwritten text or illustrations, or frequently both. The text of the first volume is primarily given to copying relevant information from literally hundreds of sale catalogues as well as from various numismatic books and articles. Much of this material is annotated by Margolis, with notes on the importance of the material as well as its accuracy. A bibliography is provided as well. Relevant details taken from his extensive correspondence is also cited, particularly letters from Raoul Kraft. Later photocopies and printouts are laid in. The second notebook consists of 80 leaves (160 pages), of which only 64 pages were used, strongly indicating that this was the final notebook used on this particular project. It continues from the first in much the same vein, recording various appearances of the essays associated with the 1791 competition and drawing conclusions from them. Having increasingly exhausted the supply of older catalogues containing relevant material, Margolis is here responding mostly to more recent offerings. In addition to extensive handwritten text, much of which was revisited over the years and revised, augmented and occasionally corrected, the notebooks include numerous illustrations, some of them photocopies, but many of them cut to size from various coin catalogues and pasted in place. In addition to halftone illustrations, the notebooks contain photographically printed collotypes depicting coins and even original photographic prints. In some cases, illustrations and other materials that have been pasted into place are starting to come loose (though they are generally intact), but overall the notebooks are in very good or better condition. The 1791 French Monetary Competition was a subject of recurring interest to Richard Margolis, who kept notes about the competition itself and the essays prepared for it over the course of many years in these composition notebooks. It is difficult to date the notebooks to a particular time period, though we can say that the first notebook was bound in 1977 (suggesting that it was full by that point). The amount of information gathered together in these notebooks is remarkable. Margolis's natural handwriting was very small, making it possible for him to fit quite a bit on a page. The devotion exhibited by him to this project, maintained over the course of decades, is very impressive, and there is much here that is of considerable interest to the specialist.