0
products in your shopping cart
Total:   $0.00 details
There are no products in your shopping cart!
We hope it's not for long.

Visit the shop

All products

list view
  1. Pages: « First < Previous 12 3 4 5Next >Last »
  • Georgian Guinea Scales c1800

    Georgian Guinea Scales c1800

    A good set of early Guinea Scales no makers label but likely by Anthony Wilkinson. Wilkinson died at Ormskirk in 1804. This set carries the original paper instruction label. All in very good working condition.

    Self-erecting and known generally as the Lancashire Gold Balance. The brass beam is rectangular in section and has a hinged “turn and swing” over weight which counter poises the beam for the guinea or half-guinea.

    A small rectangular sliding weight on the load arm registers in graduations to show discrepancies in of under-weight coins.

    The collapsing mechanism makes the whole entirely portal in the gentleman’s trouser.

    Functioning Georgian Gold Sovereign Scale

    $190.00

    Loading Updating cart…
  • Silver Mist – Joan Sutherland – First Edition 1935

    Silver Mist – Joan Sutherland – First Edition 1935

    1935 first edition with a lovely art deco inspired dust jacket. Published by Cassell, London etc, octavo, 287 pages. A ripple to the front board and the odd spot on page edges, really a very good copy in a super dust jacket.

    A romance but with some heat. Penelope falls for Sir Garth. The good looking Garth (they both are) is cited in a divorce 1930’s style. The case failed but Sir Garth was left with the stigma (nothing’s changed there). Lady Olivia is a pursuer but maybe Penelope has some tricks in store.

    1935 First Edition by the much admired Sutherland.

    $50.00

    Loading Updating cart…
  • Bruny Island and Adventure Bay – John McLean – 1950′s

    Bruny Island and Adventure Bay – John McLean – 1950′s

    Extremely scarce historical booklet concerning Bruny Island. Self-published likely with the help of the Tasmanian Government circa 1950.

    18.5cm by 12cm, 783 pages. Attractive decorative soft cover (a fold line down the front). Tow full page maps of Bruny Island and Adventure Bay … both with references.

    Potted histories including Tasman; Dufresne; Furneaux and Cook; Bligh; Cox; D’Éntrecastaux; Hayes; Baudin and Bass … and Captain Kelly. Other content includes … Adventure Bay Historical Sites; Bruny Island Aborigines; Triganini and “Bruny Island Nomenclature”

    A scarce little history from a devoted local with some little treasure that only a local and an enthusiast could properly articulate.

    $60.00

    Loading Updating cart…
  • The Andes and the Amazon – Life and Travel in Peru – C. R. Enock – 1913

    The Andes and the Amazon – Life and Travel in Peru – C. R. Enock – 1913

    A scarce copy of this important travel exploration account into Peru.

    Published by Fisher Unwin, London in 1913, a fifth printing, first in this form. Octavo, red cloth covered illustrated covers, xvi, 380 pages, portrait frontispiece. Slight foxing otherwise a very good copy. the pictorial covers are a delight

    C Reginald Enock was a mining engineer turned adventurer. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society London, the World’s greatest Club. His adventures in Peru had previously been summarised and presented by none less than Markham in the Society Journals.

    Enock explored a new high pass over the Eastern Cordillera; made the sources of the Maranon and Huaylas Rivers; visited the ruins of Huanuco and attempted the highest peak in Peru, Huascarn, at 22,000 feet.. although unsuccessful, it was not climbed until 1932 … by Austrians of course.

    In his expeditions he mulled over the origins of the indigenous population and postulated links with Asia much in the lines but sometimes conflicting with the Alfred Russell Wallace viewpoint.

    Enock and serious exploring in remote Peru …

    $120.00

    Loading Updating cart…
  • The Girl Green as Elderflower – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1980

    The Girl Green as Elderflower – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1980

    Another absolutely crisp, as if new first edition published by Secker & Warburg, London in 1980.

    Octavo, 150 pages, dust jacket art by John Piper.

    Randolph Stow had been awarded the Patrick White Award the previous year. White established the award from funds received form his Nobel Prize … good on him.

    Following quickly after Visitants a quite different book by Stow. Previous work often dealing with the deterioration of an individual here we have the opposite. Crispin Claire has been badly afflicted by his time in the Tropics. Convalescing in Suffolk the environment provides nourishment. With improved strength he begins to write a narrative around three 12th Century local stories, and he finds himself moving between the present and the time of Richard the Lionheart. Beautifully and skillfully written.

    Unusual and gripping story as can expected from Stow.

    $60.00

    Loading Updating cart…
  • No Image Available

    Unpublished Work – “The Dream and the Reality” – Single Handed Transatlantic Yacht Race 1968 – Brian Cooke.

    A unique item, the typescript account of Brian Cooke relating to his participation in the 1968 Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (STAR) east to west from Plymouth to Newport Rhode Island.

    182 pages of foolscap, corrected in manuscript. Having read through it all … it is an exceptional account ready for the press … we are not sure why he did not follow through with the publication.

    Cooke was very much an amateur before this event and he states clearly in his Preface that the book has been written “to indicate the way in which the dream of crossing the Ocean became a reality to me … what is involved for the ordinary person … to know first hand that it is quite a feasible proposition and a very worthwhile challenge …”.

    We like the way the book proper starts … “It was 1949, when I was walking down St James’s Street, London one lunchtime. I looked in a Bookshop window. One of the books on display was by Allcard describing the Atlantic voyage he had made. It was the dust cover that took my eye. On it was a photograph of Allcard, at sea, sailing his yacht single-handed, looking up at his sails, which conveyed to me a most vivid picture of satisfaction and achievement”

    The first sixty eight pages are taken up with establishing and preparing for the dream. First the yacht that had been commissioned to be built by an acquaintance with the wherewithal connected to his work at the Westminster Bank. The first trials, the personal training, the qualifying voyages etc all very interesting. At page sixty nine we have the race start proper. What follows is a very detailed account of the events of the race, nothing tedious in our view. Cooke came in sixth, out of 48, many had to turn back. Those ahead were either trimarans or larger boats, on any handicap system he may have won.

    The appendices are good for perspective and emphasise his comments in the Preface that preparation is key. We have the “sailing instructions” from the Royal Western, Plymouth. The list of yachts by nation, rig, length, hull, and rating where available. Daily records of sailing achievements and sail changes. Provisions of all sorts … we are amused to see Mars Bars, Steak and kidney puddings, HP sauce etc.

    Yachting treasure unpublished major single-handed yacht race

    $380.00

    Loading Updating cart…
LoadingUpdating…
  1. Pages: « First < Previous 12 3 4 5Next >Last »

Product Categories