1880 U. S. TREASURY. Superb Specimen Printing Album of Presidents, Civil War Heroes, & Americana.
1880 U. S. TREASURY. Superb Specimen Printing Album of Presidents, Civil War Heroes, & Americana.
A wonderful example of a finely preserved United States Treasury Department specimen book. These beautifully printed and bound albums were published by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) from the mid-1860s through the late 19th century and were issued at the request of the United States Secretary of the Treasury for presentation to Cabinet members, select Members of Congress, diplomats and visiting dignitaries.
Fascinatingly, no two presentation albums have exactly the same contents. The present has a particularly good grouping of Presidential engravings, historical personages, and Americana related allegorical engravings.
These represent the very finest of American printing during the 19th century since they were printed off the master engravings of the Bureau and on the finest paper.
A similar example is currently on offer at just under $8,000 delivered and another sold just recently at a similar price. This piece seems to have an unusually large number of Presidential and Allegorical Americana engravings; the Ouray engraving seems especially scarce. Very reasonably priced.
Folger, Charles J. U. S. Department of Treasury, Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Portraits and Vignettes. Washington. Nd. c.1870-1880.
Large 4to in original calf boards, now relaid and consolidated; respined. Title page lightly chipped, first few engravings and last few have moderate foxing; remaining with only slight foxing, nearly always outside engraving field. A small bump out of engraving field to corner and to inner margin. All edges gilt.
Contents include:
President George Washington [the same image as the 1875 one dollar bill]
President John Adams
President Thomas Jefferson
President James Madison
President James Monroe
President John Quincy Adams
President Andrew Jackson
President Martin Van Buren
President William H. Harrison
President John Tyler
President James K. Polk
President Zachary Taylor
President Millard Fillmore
President Franklin Pierce
President James Buchanan
President Abraham Lincoln
President Andrew Johnson
President Ulysses S. Grant
President Rutherford B. Hayes
President James A. Garfield
President Chester A. Arthur
George M. Dallas [Mayor of Philadelphia and Polk's Vice President]
Henry Wilson [Important Republican Anti-Slavery Abolitionist and 18th Vice President of the United States]
William A. Wheeler [19th Vice President, Under Rutherford B. Hayes]
Alexander Hamilton
Oliver Wolcott [Revolutionary War hero and Signer of the Declaration of Independence]
Samuel Dexter [Served in the Cabinet of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams]
Albert Gallatin [America's "Swiss" Founding Father]
Alexander J. Dallas [Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison]
William H. Crawford [U. S. Secretary of War]
Levi Woodbury [Supreme Court Judge / Jacksonian Democrat]
Thomas Ewing [Secretary of the Treasury and Father in Law of William Tecumseh Sherman]
Walter Forward [Congressman and Editor of the Tree of Liberty Paper]
John C. Spencer [Congressman and served in the Cabinet of President John Tyler]
George M. Bibb [Seventeenth Secretary of the Treasury]
Robert J. Walker [Senator from Mississippi]
William M. Meredith [Secretary of the Treasury under President Zachary Taylor]
Thomas Corwin [Ohio Congressman]
James Guthrie [Kentucky Politician and Plantation Owner]
John A. Dix [Union Major General in the Civil War]
William Pitt Fessenden [Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln]
Hugh McCulloch [Financier of the American Civil War]
George S. Boutwell [Secretary of the Treasury under Ulysses S. Grant]
William A. Richardson [Prominent Democratic Politician from Illinois during the Civil War]
B. H. Bristow [America's First Solicitor General]
Lot M. Morrill
John Sherman
William Mindom
Charles J. Folger
Timothy Pickering
Henry Clay
Daniel Webster
Edward Everett
William L. Marcy
Lewis Cass
William H. Seward
E. B. Washburne
Hamilton Fish
William M. Evarts
F. T. Frelinghuysen
Winfield Scott
Edwin M. Stanton
John A. Rawlins
William W. Belknap
George W. McCrary
Alexander Ramsey
Robert T. Lincoln
George Bancroft
A. E. Borie
George M. Robeson
R. W. Thompson
William H. Hunt
William E. Chandler
Columbus Delano
Zachariah Chandler
Carl Schurz
S. J. Kirkwood
Henry M. Teller
Amos Kendall
John A. J. Creswell
Marshall Jewel
James N. Tyner
David M. Key
Horace Maynard
Thomas L. James
Timothy O. Howe
George H. Williams
Edwards Pierrepont
Alphonzo Taft
Charles Devens
Benjamin H. Brewster
John Marshall
S. P. Chase
Morrison R. Waite
Robert Morris
Rufus King
De Witt Clinton
Thomas H. Benton
Silas Wright
Stephen A. Douglas
E. D. Baker
Charles Sumner
Oliver P. Morton
Frank P. Blair Jr.
A. Burlingame
F. E. Spinner
Thaddeus Stevens
Benjamin H. Hill
Matthew H. Carpenter
Fernando Wood
Ambrose E. Burnside
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Fulton
Professor Samuel Morse
Professor Joseph Henry
William Cullen Bryant
Commander John Paul Jones
Commander S. Decatur
Commander Perry
Commander Bainbridge
Admiral Dr. G. Farragut
General N. Greene
General Lafayette
General William Tecumseh Sherman
General George G. Meade
General J. K. Mansfield
General G. H. Thomas
Surgeon General J. K. Barnes
General McPherson
Martha Washington
Governor John A. Andrew
The Capitol [Two Views / Separate Pages]
The White House
The New State Department
The Treasury Department
The Patent Office
The Agricultural Department
The Smithsonian Institution
The Naval Academy
The Constitutional Convention
Columbus Discovering Land
De Soto
Columbus in Study
Battle of the Bowens
Valley Forge
Iroquois [Ship]
Polaris [Ship]
The Revenue Cutter Chase
Victory [Two Female Allegorical Engravings]
The Guardian [Female Allegorical Engraving]
Liberty [Female Allegorical Engraving]
The Standard Bearer [Soldier]
The Standard Bearer [Female Allegorical Engraving]
Mercury
Sailor
Introduction of the Old World to the New [Pocohantas]
Return of Peace [Female Allegorical Engraving]
The Eagle [with American Flag]
The Centennial [Female Allegorical]
American [Female Allegorical]
Columbia [Female Allegorical]
Marine View
Launch of the Boat
The Bristol [Ship]
Justice [Blind - Female Allegorical]
Justice [Armed - Female Allegorical]
Liberty and Union [Female Allegorical]
Columbia [Female Allegorical]
Peace [Female Allegorical]
Benjamin Franklin and Electricity
Arrival of the Sirius 1838
Scott Entering the City of Mexico
The Pioneer
Ouray [Native American Chief of the Ute]