Why you needed your butler to iron your copy of The Times

An original copy of The Times packed for rail and conventional postal delivery. Four copies are available: Monday, June 21, 1897; Monday, December 31, 1900; Tuesday, January 1, 1901; and Monday, February 4, 1901 (original brown wrapper split). Whilst the newsprint is still quite flexible these copies are not offered for opening, which they almost certainly wouldn’t survive, but as extraordinary relics of newspaper transport history. Each £10

Signs of Italy

CLOUGH (James) Signs of Italy. Outdoor lettering up and down the boot. Milan: Lazy Dog Press, 2015. Oblong 4to. Pp. 248. Profusely illustrated. Qtr. cloth. Printed boards. New. A splendid addition to the literature of outdoor lettering, on buildings and elsewhere. Including chapters on historical lettering, tuscans and art nouveau, architectural lettering, shop and cinema signs, lettering in wrought and cast metal, ceramics, etc. Out of print. SOLD

An English renaissance manuscript catechism

Part of a late 16^th or early 17^th century manuscript catechism, Anglican, written in a combination of secretary and ‘italian’ (chancery cursive) hands. Four leaves of parchment, 215 x 155mm, disbound, written both sides. Some fore-edge cracks in the top leaf with a small piece missing from top right-hand corner, with slight loss of text. Principally concerned with the form and conduct of prayer. Part of one of the myriad catechisms devised in this period and not a transcription from the Book of Common Prayer. £50

Ornata

GRICE (John) Typographical Ornata, Et Cetera [a book of typographical ornament]. [Stonehouse:] Evergreen Press, 2016. One of 99 numbered copies only. La.8vo (25 x 17.5cm). Pp. [128]. Printed in a variety of colours. Text hand-set in Romanée printed on white Zerkall mouldmade paper. Including 80 full page colour illustrations. Qtr. japanese vellum, silk sides. Silk slipcase. Out of print. New. ‘A book about, and featuring, printers’ ornament, ornamental types and a wide variety of other decorative elements used in letterpress printing, accompanied by an historically slanted commentary from the author/printer’. SOLD OUT

An album of early jobbing printing by the Perpetua Press

Old ruled notebook, quarter cloth and boards, 20 x 16cm, containing three mounted photographs of the press-room, c.1935, annotated by hand by Vivian Ridler, and c.20 leaves of mounted samples of jobbing work, mostly from the early 1930s. Followed by a further section of jobbing printing, mostly book labels, produced in the 1950s, with the part-title 'The Perpetua Press revived, Jan. 1954'. In use in Bristol and Oxford, c.1930-36, 1954-55. Covers worn. Contents sound. The three small photographs are views of the press-room in the basement of David Bland's father's vicarage in Cotham, Bristol, one showing Bland himself machine-minding. The work includes small commercial catalogues, handbills, visiting and trade cards, letterheads, etc. In the early years at least, Ridler and Bland seem to have operated as 'The Cotham Printing Guild'.
   For further background see David Bland, 'The Perpetua Press', The Private Library, 2nd series, 3:2, Summer 1970, pp.78-90, and [James Moran], 'The lighthearted Amateur behind the distinguished Professional' [a note on David Bland], Book Design and Production, 1:3, Autumn 1958, pp.15-17. Sold.

Alphabet & Image

Alphabet & Image, nos. 1-8 [all published]. Ed. By Robert Harling. London: Art & Technics, Spring 1946 – December 1948. 8 vols. 4to. Semi-stiff  boards. Nos. 1-4 with plastic comb backs (undamaged), nos. 5-8 sewn. No. 6 worn at foot of spine, otherwise an excellent set housed in two specially made clamshell boxes, qtr. morocco, cloth sides, black leather gilt lettering pieces. Sold.

Berthold Wolpe's Sachsenwald

Seven sheets of early proofs of Berthold Wolpe’s typeface Sachsenwald, showing 24, 48, 22, 36, 14 and 30D sizes. [The Monotype Corporation:] 24/7/36 – 25/11/38. Seven sheets (25 x 20cm) printed one side only. The specimen of 30pt is shown printed on both laid and coated papers. The first five sheets, to 1/2/37, bear the original name of the type, Bismarck Schrift. The type was first shown in the blackletter number of the Monotype Recorder, 36:1, Spring 1937. The completed series 457 consisted of nine sizes. According to Michael Bixler, whose upstate New York typefoundry offers Sachsenwald, only two sets of matrices were ever made. Sold.