Kolbe & Fanning
Auction 164 27 Aug 2022
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The Dohrmann Mineral Sale--Variant with Ten Plates
Chapman, S.H. and H. CATALOGUE OF THE MAGNIFICENT COLLECTION OF MINERALS, EXTREMELY RICH IN CRYSTALLIZED GOLD AND SILVER, OF A. DOHRMANN, ESQ., OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. Philadelphia: Davis & Harvey, December 13-15, 1886. Crown 4to, original white cloth-backed gilt-printed boards. 56 pages; 1137 lots; 10 fine artotype plates (1-9 plus one unnumbered). Moderate wear to binding; near fine. Adams 21, with plates. Very scarce: only the second copy we have offered of the Dohrmann sale in the last twenty years, and the only copy of the variant with a tenth plate that we have offered in over thirty years. A remarkable collection of minerals, featuring many choice gold specimens from California. Dohrmann's notable coin collection was sold in 1882 by W. Elliot Woodward. Unfortunately, little else is known about this accomplished collector in either numismatic or mineralogical circles. Many of the choice gold specimens were purchased at the sale by Georges de La Bouglise, a French mining engineer. At the sale of his collection in Paris in 1911, the whole was purchased by Albert C. Burrage of Boston who subsequently bequeathed it to the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, where many of the outstanding specimens in the Dohrmann collection can be seen today. Much additional information concerning this landmark sale is to be found in Lawrence H. Conklin's "Anatomy of a Mineral Sale: The Dohrmann Collection," appearing in the January-February 1992 issue of The Mineralogical Record. Conklin speculates "that Dohrmann may have been a mining engineer," since "Only by actually visiting a great many mines in those states could he have acquired such a large number of gold, silver and silver-containing specimens." The tenth plate is bound facing page 33 and is unnumbered; the only other copies we know of with it were sold in Part One of the Champa Library sale (Bowers/Davis, lot 138) and in Kolbe Sale 11 (lot 991)--and these may very well be the same copy. Davis 184. Ex John W. Adams Library (Kolbe & Fanning Sale 150, lot 36) at $1600 hammer; ex Cardinal Collection Library.
(Estimate: $1000)
Chapman, S.H. and H. CATALOGUE OF THE MAGNIFICENT COLLECTION OF MINERALS, EXTREMELY RICH IN CRYSTALLIZED GOLD AND SILVER, OF A. DOHRMANN, ESQ., OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. Philadelphia: Davis & Harvey, December 13-15, 1886. Crown 4to, original white cloth-backed gilt-printed boards. 56 pages; 1137 lots; 10 fine artotype plates (1-9 plus one unnumbered). Moderate wear to binding; near fine. Adams 21, with plates. Very scarce: only the second copy we have offered of the Dohrmann sale in the last twenty years, and the only copy of the variant with a tenth plate that we have offered in over thirty years. A remarkable collection of minerals, featuring many choice gold specimens from California. Dohrmann's notable coin collection was sold in 1882 by W. Elliot Woodward. Unfortunately, little else is known about this accomplished collector in either numismatic or mineralogical circles. Many of the choice gold specimens were purchased at the sale by Georges de La Bouglise, a French mining engineer. At the sale of his collection in Paris in 1911, the whole was purchased by Albert C. Burrage of Boston who subsequently bequeathed it to the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, where many of the outstanding specimens in the Dohrmann collection can be seen today. Much additional information concerning this landmark sale is to be found in Lawrence H. Conklin's "Anatomy of a Mineral Sale: The Dohrmann Collection," appearing in the January-February 1992 issue of The Mineralogical Record. Conklin speculates "that Dohrmann may have been a mining engineer," since "Only by actually visiting a great many mines in those states could he have acquired such a large number of gold, silver and silver-containing specimens." The tenth plate is bound facing page 33 and is unnumbered; the only other copies we know of with it were sold in Part One of the Champa Library sale (Bowers/Davis, lot 138) and in Kolbe Sale 11 (lot 991)--and these may very well be the same copy. Davis 184. Ex John W. Adams Library (Kolbe & Fanning Sale 150, lot 36) at $1600 hammer; ex Cardinal Collection Library.
(Estimate: $1000)