RARITIES OF NUMISMATA TYPOGRAPHICA, FOUR EXAMPLES OF EARLY DUTCH PRINTER'S BOOKBINDERS' & BOOKSELLERS' GUILD MEDALS, CAST IN STERLING SILVER FROM ORIGINAL SPECIMENS

Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press, 1996. cloth, cloth spine label. Bird & Bull Press. 8vo. cloth, cloth spine label. medals portfolio, slipcase. Descriptions by William Blades. Introduction by Henry Morris. Limited to only 120 numbered copies (Berger A58). Printed from Dante types composed by Dan Carr and Julia Ferrari at Golgonooza Letter Foundry. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch printing guilds, which included booksellers, bookbinders, publishers and artists, issued medals to their journeyman members, with the name or number of the member engraved thereon. The medal identified the holder as a qualified guild member, a sort of "union card." All "one-of-a-kind," they are highly prized and extremely difficult to find today. Few Americans have ever seen one. Henry Morris was able to identify the formerly anonymous "No.17" on one of the medals, thus adding considerable interest to what is already a fascinating subject. Due to the high cost of silver and casting, only 120 copies of this book with the medals were issued, becoming one of the scarcest of the Bird & Bull books. Accompanied by a separate folder with die-cut holes in which is loosely inserted the four facsimile medals in silver. All enclosed in a slipcase.