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]