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  • My Adventures on the Australian Goldfields – William Craig – First Edition 1903

    My Adventures on the Australian Goldfields – William Craig – First Edition 1903

    A first edition rarity of this important highly readable book about the Australian goldfields of the 19th century. Much about personal associations with bushrangers.

    Octavo, 340 pages, plus a useful index and a lengthy publisher’s period catalogue. Published by Cassell, London, Melbourne etc. A near to very good copy.

    Craig arrived in Australia from New Zealand to make his fortune and, after all, it’s better here. He recounts his arrival and first days and then he is off to the Upper Wimmera. He joins a survey party and an adventure in the Bullarook Forest. His first search for Gold and the meeting of bushrangers (Melville) who when time was lean tended to procure their gold without a shovel. Dan Burns features – a man to keep on the right side of and then there is Black Harry … more gold including a horse shod in the gleaming metal (a yarn). The gold at Bendigo never stops, the Eureka Stockade and the strange “Mongolian Irruption”.

    Written in a fulsome readable style with true first hand information of the goings on in an important aspect of Australian history.

    Australian Goldfields and Bushrangers first hand from the second half of the 19thC.

    $190.00

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  • Kauri Gum Hair Pieces – Late 19thC early 20thC

    Kauri Gum Hair Pieces – Late 19thC early 20thC

    Rare and unusual outside museums. See example only at the Kauri Museum, Metakohe, New Zealand.

    The Kauri Pine associated with New Zealand and Northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. The trees were harvested in North Island New Zealand for boat building and along with that its unusual gum was collected. At one time Kauri gum was Aukland’s biggest export. Over harvesting almost killed them off and now they are protected.

    One of the oddest uses was the making of blonde simulated hair. This was dome by placing a piece of gum onto a heated plate. After a few second it was slowly lifted off. Fine strands formed as the gum was taken away. While still warm this could be arranged or plaited into this mock hair style. If become fragile another reason why examples are hard to come across.

    Several groups in a shed made display cabinet approximately 44cm wide.

    A postage supplement may be required dependent of any buyers location … don’t be shy ask us to quote best rates.

    One of the most unusual curiosities we have ever sold – Kauri Gum Hair

    $360.00

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  • Call to the Winds – P.G. (Bill) Taylor – First Edition 1939

    Call to the Winds – P.G. (Bill) Taylor – First Edition 1939

    Important and scarce aviation book. “Bill” Taylor’s heroic flight with Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm.

    First edition Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1939. Octavo, 227 pages, with period photographs of the aircraft “Southern Cross” including the damaged engine and propeller and the life saving thermos flask. Signature on front paste down. Very good copy with an almost impossible to find dust jacket.

    Patrick Gordan Taylor (1891-1966) later knighted one of Australia’s greatest aviators. Participated in several major flight firsts with Sir Charles Kingsford, Charlie Ulm and later Richard Archbold. Known affectionately as “Bill” … Taylor joined the British Royal Flying Corps in 1916 with No 66 Squadron. After the war he returned to Australia and the start of commercial aviation activities.

    The core of this book is about a 1935 flight, in the Southern Cross, with Kingsford Smith and Ulm from Australia to New Zealand with the view to establishing a mail service between the two countries. Mid Tasman the starboard engine failed. They decided to return to Sydney but encountered high winds. The port engine began to overheat and was running out of cooling oil. Bill Taylor climbed outside the aircraft along the wire below the wind strut, with a thermos flask, drained oil from the broken starboard engine and transferred it to the port engine. He did this six times before they made a safe landing back in Sydney.

    Aviation Heroics – Bill Taylor with Kingsford Smith and Ulm – outside the Southern Cross over the Tasman

    $180.00

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  • Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado New Zealand – Zane Grey – First edition 1926

    Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado New Zealand – Zane Grey – First edition 1926

    First edition, published by Hodder & Stoughton, London in 1926.

    Quarto, x,228 pages bound in the original blue cloth covered boards with gilt titling and leaping fish to front. A little age to spine ends otherwise a super copy for a book near 100 years old. Heavy at circa 2kg so likely not suitable for Overseas.

    Zane Grey (1872-1939) famous for his interest in and writing about great fishing adventures rather than his profession – dentistry. He was also handy with the camera and the many illustrations are from photographs taken by the author. Additional sketches by Frank Phares.

    Fishing for some big guys … Marlin, Swordfish and the Mako Shark and maybe less butch for Taupo and Trout on quieter waters.

    Zane Grey is the man with the “fush” in New Zealand ..

    $120.00

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  • Polynesian Navigation – A Symposium on Andrew Sharp’s Thoery of Accidental Voyages – Edited by Jack Golson

    Polynesian Navigation – A Symposium on Andrew Sharp’s Thoery of Accidental Voyages – Edited by Jack Golson

    Andrew Sharpe certainly stirred up the debate as to hoe the Pacific Islands may have been settled.

    A symposium in the 1960’s brought together some pretty good minds on the subject.

    Published by the Polynesian Society, Wellington, New Zealand in 1963. Being Memoir No 34, a Supplement to the Journal of the Society. Softcover, octavo, 153 pages plus bibliography. Three useful maps, two of which are folding. A little age, still a very good copy.

    Cartographic expert, Thomas M Perry’s copy with his discrete stamp top of front cover.

    The body of the work review the “Accidental Voyage Theory”’ – Parsonson; Primitive Navigation – Captain Hayen and Captain Hilder; Sailing Characteristics of Oceanic Canoes – Bechton; The Geographical Knowledge of the Polynesians and the Nature of Inter-Island Contact – Dening; Geographical Knowledge of Tahitian etc etc

    The Pacific Solved – Maybe

    $35.00

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  • The Happy Isles of Oceania (Paddling the Pacific) – Paul Theroux

    The Happy Isles of Oceania (Paddling the Pacific) – Paul Theroux

    Value for money, the best modern book by far on the western Pacific – Oceania by the talented Theroux.

    Published by Hamish Hamilton, London in 1992 a first edition. Thick octavo, 541 pages with maps at the end for those that are unfamiliar.

    Seemingly Theroux was encouraged to visit the Trobriand Islands by Malinowski’s “the Sexual Life of Savages” a ground breaking and “’writer’s taboo” breaking work from the esteemed anthropologist.

    All of this is after the Land of the Long White Cloud and before the paddle to Fifi and Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Marquesas. Then straying east to Easter Island and up and back a bit to Hawaii and “Paradise” … and some others in-between.

    Theroux throws his lot into the Pacific.

    $30.00

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