Kolbe & Fanning
Auction 163 30 Apr 2022
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The "Colonial Book that Never Happened"
Bowers, Q. David. UNTITLED MANUSCRIPT FOR UNPUBLISHED BOOK ON AMERICAN COLONIAL COINS. N.p., c. mid-1960s to mid-1970s. Typewritten manuscript with occasional handwritten pages. 130 leaves, generally typewritten on one side, with occasional handwritten content on versos; includes some half-sheets. Most typewritten leaves are annotated by hand in ink. Some sections stapled in upper corner. Generally very good or better, and housed in a handsome, custom-made clamshell box (4to, dark blue half calf with marbled sides; spine with five raised bands, ruled, lettered and decorated in gilt; brown spine label, gilt). A notable early Bowers manuscript, and the genesis of a project that did not come to fruition until the 2009 publication of the Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins. The present manuscript is similar in scope, systematically covering all early American numismatic issues on a relatively basic level, listing major types and (in the earlier drafts, at least) proving a price guide. Indeed, the present pages include multiple drafts of many sections, and most of the pages bear handwritten annotations, corrections, revisions, etc. The prices given in some places reflect those of the mid-1960s, suggesting a starting point for the project (unfortunately, no bibliography pages are present and very few secondary works are cited, making it more difficult to determine the time of composition). "BB" numbers are provided by hand to the Vermont section's typewritten pages. Many entries cite coins in the Johns Hopkins University collection, indicating that these pages had been set aside by the time of the Garrett sales of the late 1970s. The manilla file folder in which these were stored for many years has "Colonial Book that Never Happened" written on it in Bowers's hand. This is a major Bowers manuscript, from long before the use of computers changed the author's composition process and radically increased the number of extant drafts of his work. It is interesting to consider how the colonial specialty might have changed had Bowers published a guide to colonial coins in the 1970s, when it was still a rather small niche of the American numismatic market. Ex David Sklow Sale 9, lot 28; ex Robert M. Martin Library.
Bowers, Q. David. UNTITLED MANUSCRIPT FOR UNPUBLISHED BOOK ON AMERICAN COLONIAL COINS. N.p., c. mid-1960s to mid-1970s. Typewritten manuscript with occasional handwritten pages. 130 leaves, generally typewritten on one side, with occasional handwritten content on versos; includes some half-sheets. Most typewritten leaves are annotated by hand in ink. Some sections stapled in upper corner. Generally very good or better, and housed in a handsome, custom-made clamshell box (4to, dark blue half calf with marbled sides; spine with five raised bands, ruled, lettered and decorated in gilt; brown spine label, gilt). A notable early Bowers manuscript, and the genesis of a project that did not come to fruition until the 2009 publication of the Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins. The present manuscript is similar in scope, systematically covering all early American numismatic issues on a relatively basic level, listing major types and (in the earlier drafts, at least) proving a price guide. Indeed, the present pages include multiple drafts of many sections, and most of the pages bear handwritten annotations, corrections, revisions, etc. The prices given in some places reflect those of the mid-1960s, suggesting a starting point for the project (unfortunately, no bibliography pages are present and very few secondary works are cited, making it more difficult to determine the time of composition). "BB" numbers are provided by hand to the Vermont section's typewritten pages. Many entries cite coins in the Johns Hopkins University collection, indicating that these pages had been set aside by the time of the Garrett sales of the late 1970s. The manilla file folder in which these were stored for many years has "Colonial Book that Never Happened" written on it in Bowers's hand. This is a major Bowers manuscript, from long before the use of computers changed the author's composition process and radically increased the number of extant drafts of his work. It is interesting to consider how the colonial specialty might have changed had Bowers published a guide to colonial coins in the 1970s, when it was still a rather small niche of the American numismatic market. Ex David Sklow Sale 9, lot 28; ex Robert M. Martin Library.