Rare Book Monthly
Articles - February - 2005 Issue
Exceptional Americana on the Block February 16th
Lot 59 in Auction 14: first edition of Venegas with 3 maps.
For San Francisco collectors looking for a very good, early map of San Francisco there is lot 136.
[MAP: SAN FRANCISCO]. COOKE & LECOUNT (publishers). A Complete Map of San Francisco Compiled from the Original Map from the Latest Surveys. Containing all the Latest Extentions [sic] and Improvements, New Streets, Alleys, Places, Wharves, etc. 1852. Publd. by Cooke & Lecount, Statrs. Montgomery Street. San Francisco. [at right below title]: Explanation (i.e., the key showing public buildings, churches, theaters, newspaper offices, and symbols). Lithographed map with original outline hand coloring (pink and blue), ornate intertwining vine border, seal of California in title, compass rose, scale. 55 x 68.5 cm; 21-3/4 x 27 inches. Folded into original 16mo gilt-lettered embossed teal cloth cover. Printed ticket of Noisy Carrier's Publishing Hall on front pastedown. Cover slightly rubbed at corners, contemporary plain pastedown laid over original (probably by Noisy Carrier's to hide original copy beneath), small splits to map at a few folds (no losses), verso with browning at folds, but overall a superb copy of a rare pocket map. Preserved in green half morocco clamshell case.
First edition(?) of one of the earliest separately issued printed maps of San Francisco. This map is not to be confused with the Eddy map of this same year (see California 49: Forty-Nine Maps of California from the Sixteenth Century to the Present [Warren Heckrotte] 32). Here the proposed landfill area is still essentially as shown on the Eddy map. However, the present map shows more proposed streets to the northwest than does Eddy, who stops at Larkin Street. The present map, which is a more elaborate production than earlier San Francisco maps, was published no later than November, 1852, when the firm dissolved (Peters, California on Stone, p. 102). Not in Phillips, Maps of America. Estimated at (5,000-$10,000)
Lot 182. [SAN FRANCISCO VIGILANCE COMMITTEE]. Daily Evening Bulletin vol. 2, no. 39. [San Francisco], May 23, 1856. 4 pp. Folio. Minor losses at folds, some scattered light stains, upper right browned.
First printing. Kemble, pp. 103-104. Very early issue of this influential San Francisco paper. Although its editor, James King of William, had been murdered on May 14, 1856, this issue still has his name in the masthead. His funeral and the executions of Casey and Cora are prominently covered on p. 2. This is the source of the account of events in A True and Minute History of the Assassination of James King of Wm. at San Francisco. Cal. Also Remarks of the Press concerning the Outrage... [wrapper title]. San Francisco: Whitton, Towne, 1856 (see preceding two items). ($50-100)
In the auction room there will be about 75 seats. That's not many chairs for sales of this stature. You can leave absentee bids and avoid the heart-pounding uncertainty of the bidding. If you plan to attend contact the auction house to reserve a seat and to complete bid registration.
Links to AE auction Calendar and to the Dorothy Sloan Rarebook site.
