The Victoria gold ready reckoner,

A$2,750 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

carefully revised. Commencing at £3 and terminating at £4. 5s 9d per ounce. Melbourne: Sands and McDougall, 1878. Fifth edition. Sextodecimo (110 x 73 mm), original blind-embossed brown cloth over boards with gilt lettering to upper board (boards rubbed, spine slightly rolled and ends a little frayed); front pastedown with early ownership inscription of A. E. Baker, Oaklands , Omeo , salmon-coloured endpapers; pp. 218; occasional spotting, but clean and sound throughout; an extremely good example of this miner s portable working guide to values, which would have been carried on the goldfields. The Victoria Gold Ready Reckoner was first published by Sands Kenny in 1857. Upon dissolution of the partnership of John Sands and Thomas Kenny in 1861, Sands formed a partnership with Dugald McDougall; Victoria Ready Reckoners were subsequently published in the 1860s and 70s bearing the imprint of Sands McDougall. Any edition of the Gold Ready Reckoner with the Sands Kenny or Sands McDougall imprint can be considered rare, with some only known in a single example. This diminutive publication, one of only a few recorded copies, is something of a nugget in itself an ephemeral personal artefact from a prospector in the Australian gold rush of the nineteenth century. Trove locates only three copies of the fifth edition (NLA; SLV; NMA Research Library). The NLA s cataloguing note testifies to the ephemeral nature and often heavy practical use to which these small miner s tools would general

• Binding: Hardcover

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