MARSH, S.H. [Stephen Hale]. The Australian Valse, composed for the opening of the Government House, Sydney ... London, Boosey & Co [184-?]. Sheet music 34x25cm, disbound; title leaf with handcoloured lithograph view (by Marsh's brother-in-law Skinner Prout) and 9pp of engraved music. Some marks and signs of use, pretty good. Au$500

In the papers of Marsh's son George in the Huntington Library, Marsh is described as court musician to Queen Victoria - a nice example of self-aggrandisement and family myth seeping into ostensible fact. Did anyone wonder how a bankrupt music seller of Bristol got invited to Victoria's court? In any case, continual re-invention was a skill as necessary as delicate touch on the harp for most performers and composers whose ambitions outweigh their fame or patrons.
Marsh arrived in Sydney in 1842, preceded by accounts of his celebrated performances and compositions, and set himself up in short-lived grandeur. Much of the next decade seems to have been spent in a blow-for-blow musical feud with Isaac Nathan. By the 1860's he was managing the Melbourne branch of his brother Henry's music publishing business and by the mid seventies the Marsh clan were all in California.
I don't mean to imply that Marsh was insignificant. He and Nathan were the closest thing Australia had to 'real' composers for some time and he was busy. He remains overshadowed by Nathan but having never heard anything but some of Nathan's hardly riveting Don John I can't judge how good either of them were. I'd guess neither was any Schumann.
Graeme Skinner posits that this piece was for the 1843 Queen's birthday celebration held in the still unfinished government house but wasn't printed until later in forties.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Poster - dye. 私達の家庭染料 - すみれ染 [Watashitachi no Katei Senryo : Sumire Zome]. [Tokyo? 193-?]. Colour poster 52x36cm. In excellent shape. Au$185

Sumire dye was the home dye of choice for modern vamps.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Urine. Carlo Magnani-Riccoti. Il Sindaco della Citta di Novara - Manifesto. Novara, Miglio 1862. Broadside 56x39cm tipped on card. Old folds, a nice copy. Au$200

Magnani-Roccoti, first mayor of modern Novara, warns the citizens of Novara that the piss sodden streets of the city will be tolerated no more and that police will prosecute with utmost rigour anyone sploshing urine around the place. I wonder whether the urine issue was related to the recent invention of a beverage by Signor Campari of Novara. And I wonder why the existence of a manifesto against piss strikes me as irresistible.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Kinoshita Circus. 木下大サーカス団 [Kinoshita Dai Sakasu Dan]. n.p. [194-?]. Colour lithograph poster 76x52cm. Au$300

The advertising tax stamp - lower right - dates this between 1942 and 1946; so I'm told. As does the replacement of lions and elephants with a goat. The Kinoshita circus started with the 20th century and is now one of the world's biggest.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Photo album of life on a station somewhere in northern South Australia. n.p. c1930? Commercial Australian Kodak photo album 19x31cm; 12 leaves each with four windows 5x10cm, 48 silver gelatine prints. Covers a bit dishevelled but solid. Au$600

From where I sit, a forbidding, gaunt rendering of outback life that makes your harshest Drysdale painting seem lush. Unidentified but, from the landscape and the stone buildings, somewhere in upper South Australia where the sheep outnumber the grass and people outnumber the trees. At the end are photos of what looks like a holiday jaunt down to the Murray River.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

China. A photograph album of scenes and people in the area around Liangxi. n.p. [c1920?]. Cloth back album 23x15cm; eight card leaves each with four windows, 7.5x10cm; 30 loosely inserted photos, most identified in pencil on the mount. Four photos quite faded. Au$275

Possibly someone associated with a hospital in Liangxi district - west of Shanghai. Allowing for changes in orthography, this seems to be where our photographer was and a couple of photos are portraits of patients. Some photos are "near Soochow" - now Suzhou.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Film - lobby card. Guerra Entre Planetas - Battle in Outer Space. n.p. [1959/60]. Colour poster 26x37cm. A small hole, a rather good copy. Au$150

Spanish language lobby card for the Japanese sci-fi thriller Uchu Daisenso released in English as Battle in Outer Space. This was no low budget shocker. This was a high budget, special effects extravaganza shocker with an international cast - at least three or four American hacks were in it.
This is my favourite of the various posters and lobby cards I've seen - the Japanese and American versions tried too hard to make the movie big budget serious.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Charles Bayliss. Photograph of Pitt Street, Sydney, looking south. n.p. [c1881-83]. Albumen print 150x199mm, on original mount now trimmed close, with studio blindstamp, in excellent shape. Au$450

Bayliss manages here - in this woman-free view of mercantile Pitt Street that shows a more established, grander street than some of his other views of Pitt Street - to capture all the elements of a lesson in perspective from a baroque drawing master.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Charles Bayliss. Photograph of George Street, Sydney, looking south. n.p. [c1884?]. Albumen print 149x202mm, on original mount now trimmed close, with studio blindstamp, in excellent shape. Au$450

A fine busy view of the retail heart of Sydney. More ramshackle than the financial monoliths of Pitt Street, none of what can be seen here survives. In the centre of the picture is the Royal Hotel. To its left is Foley's Hotel.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

PLOYER, Otokar. Views, elevations and plans for the Remislavsky-Stome villa and studio in Prague, along with drawings and plans for a 'California Weekender'. n.p. c1930-35. Eight sheets ranging in size from single sheets 21x33cm to a four fold sheet 34x83cm. These are printed by whatever lithographic process on a heavy parchment paper and coloured by hand. All have Ployer's stamps and are signed in ink. As well there is a typed signed letter, two pages on one sheet, and a photo collage card printed on the back. Together in a contemporary portfolio, 36x28cm, with ribbon ties. Au$185

The client and the house are easy to track. Dancer, choreographer and former National Theatre Ballet Director Remislav Remislavsky and his ballerina wife Irmou Stome opened their purpose built dance school in 1934. He joined the resistance during war and was denounced as bourgeois and his villa seized in 1948 according to one biographer. He lived happily and taught on after the war according to another.
The building survives and appears to be home now to a number of companies that don't actually do anything.
The architect not so much. One drawing here has a blindstamp: "Ing. Otokar Ployer Amer. Architekt" and the photo collage card with the lot is Remislavsky's announcement that the school will open in September 1934 and was purpose designed by American architect "Playerem" (sic). On other drawings he is Ing. O. Ployer. The letter, dated January 1 1936, with the lot explains this group of drawings. He suggests in the letter that his friends might like to build his California weekender. I'd say he added a batch of drawings and plans of the Remislavsky villa - his big project - to impress his prospective clients. He mentions he is working on the design of an air raid shelter, a useful thing to have in central Europe as the thirties progress, and he filed, from Prague, for a US patent for an air raid shelter in 1939 which was granted in 1945.
Elsewhere I find the suggestion that he migrated to Sweden at some stage but in 1947 the firm Ployer Otakar of the same address in Prague advertised in a Rio de Janeiro newspaper for contacts with exporters of machinery, rubber, chemicals, coffee, etc and for importers of glass, synthetic stones and toys. 1948 may well have killed that career and seen him off to Sweden. How and where he is an American architect in all this beats me.
The drawings and the photos of the villa built show that a fair amount of rationalisation took place. A grandiose mansion of no fixed heritage is pruned to a large central European Mediterranean villa and built with not a whole lot more trimming down. His California weekender is ... maybe Spanish mission put into a car compactor.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

MORESBY, John. Autograph letter to the commander, officers and ship's company of H.M.S. Moresby. n.p. June 8, 1916. One page on foolscap, folded. A couple of small holes in a fold. Au$350

The aged explorer of New Guinea and retired Admiral writes congratulating the ship's company on their valiant fight in the North Sea and lamenting that he is too infirm to properly respond to the honour they have conferred on him. He is "laid up in port, my anchor catted and fished, Blue Peter flying" but the hull splinters and torn flag presented to him will "be more to him than all other things he could desire, and to my descendants the most valuable heirloom I could possibly hand down." The Moresby took part in the Battle of Jutland under commander Roger Alison.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Catalogue - magic. Green Frog. Magician's Handbook ... catalogue of "Green Frog" magical conjuring stage and pocket tricks. n.p. [Sydney?] 1939. Single sheet folded to form four pages largish octavo by size, outer pages with red and green illustrations, inside printed in black. Au$35

A flyer to promote Green Frog tricks and their catalogue, a sample page inside and some hints and tips. Naturally this is better printed on better paper than the actual catalogue.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Surfing film. Scenic Australia. Surfing - Australian Style. Norman S. Little, Sydney [c1960?]. 8mm colour film on reel in original colour printed box, 77x77mm. Apparently in excellent shape with the original lead-in title at the beginning of the film intact. Au$220

Some two to two and a half minutes of maybe otherwise lost surf footage - "from an entirely new angle" - presuming it runs at 24 frames per second. This may seem short but let me assure you that unless you are a totally stoned fan of Taman Shud it's plenty. The Norman S. Little Scenic Film Division, of Erskine Street Sydney, obviously made films designed for producers of newsreels, travelogues, documentaries and the like. They list fourteen other titles on the back of the box, mostly of life and landscape in and around Sydney, and promise interstate and Pacific Island films to come. That the name would remain unknown to the public is simple enough but I can't find any record of Norman S. Little and his films anywhere. He seems unknown to the National Film and Sound Archives, and everywhere else I can think to look.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Garnham Blaxcell. Indenture made on 20th April 1815 between Garnham Blaxcell and Sir John Jamison leasing large parcels of Sydney to Jamison in receipt of payment of five shillings. n.p. 1815 Folio, three pages on two conjugate leaves, folded with docket title on the last page. Paper quite discoloured but sound, ink faded but legible. Signed and sealed by Blaxcell. A Lands Titles Office stamp of 1868 on the docket doubtless relates to an application under the Real Property Act for some land originally part of Blaxcell's grant. Au$1350

A splendid and telling foundation document for the history of that most Australian heroic icon - continued in an unbroken line from Blaxcell to now - the unscrupulous and overreaching entrepeneur who ducks the consequences. Blaxcell was only one of the network of grasping shonks that constitute the noble pioneers of this new nation - most of them are familiar place names now - but I gather he was the first to go from titan to vanishing fugitive pretty much overnight. His empire had been precarious if not illusory since at least 1809 when he began mortgaging his property to business partner Thomas Jamison but still he was part of the consortium that made the Sydney hospital for rum deal with Macquarie and was issuing currency notes* as late as 1814 while his promissory notes continued to be dishonoured.
Thomas Jamison's son, Sir John, arrived in the colony in 1814 and obviously set about collecting on Blaxcell's debts to his late father. The first and largest plot is the 1125 acre grant now known as the suburb Granville and I lost count of the smaller plots - each between 25 and 60 acres - in Petersham. I'm puzzled by what exactly this document is. There is mention in this agreement of rent of one peppercorn that I don't understand. Was this some scheme to hide rather than lose his assets or, more likely, a way for Jamison to collect his debt without joining the queue? Certainly this agreement pops up again in 1820 in the case of Campbell v. MacArthur and Oxley - crony and estate administrator of Blaxcell respectively - when the double dealing solicitor William Henry Moore boasted that he could "overturn the settlement made between Sir J. Jamison and Mr Blaxcell" (Sydney Gazette 1820). In any case, Blaxcell, aware that the authorities were closing in, snuck out of the colony in April 1817 and quickly drank himself to death in Batavia.
*One of these worthless currency notes sold a couple of years ago for $6700, apparently a decent return for a 200 year wait for payment of ten shillings. Doesn't seem enough to me.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Edward Stanford. A Map of the Nile, from the equatorial lakes to the Mediterranean ... with the surveys and explorations of Emin, Junker, Stanley, &c. ... 1896. London, Stanford 1896. 68x56cm colour map, dissected and mounted on linen folding into publisher's case with printed label (outer front hinge split but perfectly firm, two owner's inscriptions on the label). Au$75

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

SPENCE, Percy Frederick Seaton. Two ink drawings: native police and apparent new chums with a settler. n.p. [c1890?]. Two signed drawings, ink on card, 195x265mm and 240x175mm. Some marks and faint signs of blue pencil. Au$275

The drawing of the troop of Melanesian police is clearly to head a magazine story and the other, which shows what look like two new chums being given the lowdown by a settler on his verandah, is likely also for a magazine story.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

>Ship's newspaper. The Sorata Scorcher Vol. 1 No. 2. October 10(?) 1883. Printed on the ship Sorata, 1883. Six sheets foolscap with ten pages printed by duplication from manuscript, fastened with a split pin. Some separation along the fold and insect nibbling; the first page very faded, others vary from faintish to dark. Au$95

The Sorata plyed the London Sydney route through the seventies and eighties and presuming other passengers were as enthusiastic as this lot there must have been a lot of Sorata newspapers at the time but I can't find any mention of any of them. This was a London to Sydney voyage - arriving on November 4 - and this was issued just before calling at Capetown. It has the expected amount of whimsy and one correspondent has contributed a lost child in the Queensland bush tale. The hero was the black tracker; I wonder if he was rewarded with a flagon of invalid port.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

NICHOLSON, Admiral Sir Douglas Romilly Lothian. ANS to a Mrs Gibbs dated 22nd November 1922 on HMS Courageous notepaper. n.p. 1922. One page. Au$20

A sweet enough note thanking Mrs Gibbs for the photo of Sybil (his wife) which he would like better if he wasn't also in it.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Rochester University. Grand Exhibition of Rochester University Pet Animals, at Corinthian Hall, Friday Evening, December 4 1868. Paris, Hicockalorum Bros., Printers [presumably Rochester NY, 1868]. Four pages quarto, wood engraved illustrations on all pages. A bit used with old horizontal folds; a pretty good survival. Au$120

A cute student romp which presumably meant a lot if you happened to be there - it may still mean a lot to historians of the university. This is the programme for a circus performance in which parades a series of exotic and musical creatures - the White-Whiskered Execrable Woodchuck (a squeak, pianissimo); the Almighty Conceited Rhi-Nasti-Cuss (an egostical snort) and so on. The Sequel to Serenading Female Seminaries is intriguing; June 13, 1867 is doubtless marked somewhere in the university or police annals. Rochester despite (or because of) being a hotbed of feminism allowed women to attend Saturday lectures only from the late seventies and kept its university staunchly male until 1900. I find no mention of this in any library catalogue I could get at including the Rochester University Library catalogue.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

WEAVER, Mrs. Letter from a Mrs Weaver to a Mr Buntin, September 17 1880 n.p. One leaf, octavo by size; annotation in another hand on the back. Au$25

An unsettling, pitiful semi-literate letter from Mrs Weaver who heard that her husband had died out at Botany and, as Mr Buntin had taken him to the infirmary, she asks that he "take care of what good he had untill I can come" and leave them with Mrs Dunk "untill I do come". A Robert Buntin was a butcher at Waterloo and a Mrs Jane Dunk lived at Marrickville according to Sands Directories. I don't know who Mrs Weaver was or where she had to come from to claim her husband's possessions..

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Troublemakers. Huddersfield Declaration. Declaration. We, the undersigned Magistrates and other Inhabitants of the Town and Neighbourhood of Huddersfield, feel ourselves called upon, at this momentous Crisis ... Huddersfield, printed by Brook [1817]. Printed broadside 320x385mm. Folded. A nice copy. Au$175

A rallying call to resist the enemies of the country with their "speculative Systems of Politics ... wild and dangerous Schemes of Universal Suffrage ... tending to produce ... Riot, Anarchy, and Ruin. In their indiscriminate Contempt of all Rank and Authority ... organised System of their Committees ... profligate Character of their Leaders ... Attempts to set the Poor at Variance with their Superiors ... we recognize some of the leading Features of the French Revolution ..." The late diabolical attempt on the life the illustrious Prince mentioned dates this to soon after January 28 1817 when an attempt was made on his life while on his way to open Parliament. Very soon after - there exists another version of the same text in a different setting, headed "Huddersfield Declaration", dated in print January 31 1817 and with a printed list of names. I only know this because I noticed it too late in the same sale that this came from, I find no record of either anywhere else.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Corn. [CLAYE, Rev William]. A Supplementary Letter to the Right Honorable Lord William Bentinck. Corn Importation, &c. Newark, printed by S. & J. Ridge 1826. Broadside 375x235mm, printed with manuscript notes. Folded with a manuscript docket title on the back: "Mr Claye's Letter to Ld. W. Bentinck - sent to me ^by him Nov 24 1826". The letter is dated in print Nov 4, 1826 from Westhorpe, Notts. Au$90

The Rev William Claye of Westhorpe, Chaplain to the Duke of Grafton, is noted as being an owner of extensive tracts of land in Shilton's 1818 history of the area - which makes somewhat disingenuous his adding the clergy to the "humble classes of life," to whose lives the measure of May 1826 added "Distress and Misery". Unlocated in Copac and OCLC.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Wedding souvenir. Souvenir in Commemoration of the Marriage Between Captain Leonard G. Sewell ... and Miss Elsa Faning at Christ Church, Lancastergate, January 5th 1918. [London, printed by Burges 1918]. Sheet of creped tissue printed in colour 36x34cm. Folded. Au$75

Ugly but impressive - for the printing and its survival. The yellow flowers are presumably wattle. Captain Sewell of the Australian Machine Gun Company - a mining engineer at Mount Morgan before the war - was wounded in France in 1916. His brother died at Gallipoli but Leonard lived on into old age and apparently never returned to Australia.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Paper Toy. John Sands, Sydney. The Spanish Galleon. Sydney, John Sands [194-?]. Colour printed perforated card sheets in ragged but essentially complete colour printed envelope (27x40cm); with 16pp octavo leaflet including instructions. Au$150

War time production by the look of it. Designed and produced by Sands for lovers of things piratic and pretty complicated - 97 pieces according to the instructions.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

>HINGSTON, John. To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, The humble Petition of the Labouring Poor of Great Britain, sheweth, ... Exeter, printed by Featherstone 1827. Two integral foolscap leaves, 4pp with gap left for an address. Folded and addressed, with post marks, to Viscount Milton with the added notation, "Petition of the Labouring Poor from Exeter". Signed in print, "John Hingston, Exeter, November, 1827." A small hole from opening the wax seal. Au$400

A radical, near utopian, demand for the Labouring Poor to have half what they pay in indirect taxes spent for their benefit. The first radical part is in the method of collecting the money: it is to come from what goes to the army and navy and by whacking taxes on the nobility, gentry and landed proprietors. Then we step up a notch. The ten million pounds raised would be handed over to associations of a thousand persons and eventually lead to universal property ownership, the abolition of Negro Slavery and a "revolution ... such as few ever contemplated ... which elevates the mind above all the previous actions of mankind". We finish with a scarely veiled threat about the madness of opposing the masses - "all power flows from them, they are now confident of that power".
Milton, later Earl Fitzwilliam, was long time MP for Yorkshire having been thrust by his father into Parliament when still underage. By 1827 his reputation of obstinancy and impractibility was well established and he and his family were described by Creevey as "the ugliest and most dismal race I ever beheld". Unlocated in Copac and OCLC.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

>Wine Labels - Sample Book. Myncke Freres, Brussels. The printer's sample album of wine labels printed by Myncke Freres of Brussels. n.p. 1930s. Oblong quarto (230x315mm) flexible linen album with some 220 lithograph labels plus some neck labels and vintage dates (ranging from 1915 to 1937) mounted on both sides of 31 leaves. Nothing removed and all in great shape. Au$400

This is an album to be shown to clients rather than a scrap book. There are numbers of labels for specific wineries and appellations and numbers more that are for generic varieties or, in some case, unlettered altogether. All are signed Litho Myncke or initialled LM or MF.
The Mynckes seem to have made something of a specialty of wine - a rummage round the internet finds a couple of large posters for champagne - and this album shows they had a fairly long reach across western Europe - France, Belgium, into Germany and includes some Port labels in English. The styles also range around, from the classic and restrained (it's hard to beat a modicum of gold on glazed midnight blue) to vibrantly modern to garish kitsch.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Printing - packaging. Ennever & Appleton. A gathering of printed labels and wrappers for Ennever & Appleton, Confectioners of Sydney. Sydney n.p. A dozen different labels and wrappers in various sizes, some in multiple copies, a few chipped or ragged. There are hundreds of copies of the glazed Rasberry Cream wrappers in eight different colours. Au$175

Earlyish 20th century? Ennever & Appleton were at Bay Street, on the corner of Broadway, from about 1886 to 1966 so this address on these labels doesn't help much with being more precise. A colourful later looking piece refers to the Pure Food Act of 1908 and a woodcut vignette of their premises on one label is populated with late 19th century women but that could have remained unchanged for decades.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Photograph - Hunting party. A photograph of a group of colonial hunters. n.p. n.d [c1880?]. Albumen print 130x200mm on an old card mount that is quite chipped around the edges, now in a modern mount and fake period frame that can be kept or discarded as desired. Au$475

An arresting, terrifying image that in bleaker moods represents too well some flipside Australian spirit of achievement: in an near desolated landscape every male who can sit on a horse and hold a gun is about to set out and slaughter whatever is left. The presence of at least three children indicates they aren't out for Aborigines or bushrangers but I wouldn't want to be a creature of any species in that neighbourhood. I count 35 hunters so this isn't some spur of the moment after lunch jaunt and there are a couple of distinguished looking members - but this clearly isn't the kind of mock fox hunt that Trollope describes in his account of Australia, the bandolier draped round one hunter makes that clear.
I can't see anything in the costumes or guns that couldn't date from the 1860's but outback Australia isn't known for avant-garde fashion and an expert may prove me wrong; so I've opted for a later approximate date.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Advertising. Hudson's Household Removals. Hudson's Household Removals. Fire Proof Depositories. London, the company [1904]. Quarto publisher's colour illustrated boards; 16 leaves of blotting paper with Hudson's heading etc printed on both sides. The text inside the covers and on the blotter pages is in French. Calendar for 1905 inside the back cover. Au$100

A splendid bit of futuristic international marketing with a view of one of their coming airships wafting a van over the London skyline; 1904 was a good time for powered airships. It's a quibble that the motor, indeed a pilot, for Hudson's airship is invisible but what is odd is that the Hudson van, identical to the vans on the back cover, is still horse powered. Included inside the back cover are letters of approbation from royal and aristocratic clients, from the Empress Eugenie in 1894 to Baron von Stael in 1903.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Tasmania. Stereoscope card: Elizabeth Street and the Union Bank of Australia. Hobart, Tasmania. Keystone [190-?]. Stereo images on printed card (89x178mm); printed description on the back. In fine condition. Au$30

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook

Advertising - Feet. M. Joel & M. Kock, (from Paris) Corn Operators, by Special Appointment to the Duke de Orleans and Princess Adelaide, Prince Nassau ... most respectfully informs the Nobility, Gentry and Public in general, that they eradicate Bunions and Soft Corns from their very roots; ... n.p. [c1830?]. Single sheet (220x140mm); text printed in a decorative border with a cut of a corn operator at work at the top and a bare foot at the bottom. A couple of spots but pretty good. Au$125

Messieurs Joel and Kock normally spent their winters in Paris and summers in London but here their residence has been filled in by hand as 3 George Place, Plymouth, opposite the Royal Hotel.

You can email an inquiry or order securely through antiqbook