Books Printed For, and Sold by David West, No. 36 Marlborough Street
Boston: n.d. (1795). 12mo. Bifolium. Unpaginated but [4] pp., final page blank. Toned, edges a little worn. Preserved in a mylar sleeve. Item #2674
This diminutive advertisement is a remarkable survival, and seems to represent a separate issue of the advertisement that appears in David West's 1795 publication of "Catechism of Nature for the Use of Children." The present specimen was not extracted from any binding; curiously, there are side stab-holes in the inside margins that were certainly made by a broad knife. In the gutter margin are two pinholes; no thread has ever passed through them; moreover, these pinholes are wrongly positioned for the sewing of a codex book.
Finally, AAS gives the pagination of the final gathering of West's 1795 "Catechism" as numbered "3, [1]" and the collation: "I4, with I2v and I4v blank." The present bifolium could not have been utilized in such a gathering. A gathering "I" consisting of four leaves (i.e. two conjugates) could only be bifolium I1+I4 surrounding bifolium I2+3. That the present specimen was printed as one or the other bifolium is an impossibility.
For the published "Catechism" see Evans 29026 and ESTC W7326.
Price: $750.00 save 10% $675.00