1894 Benjamin Franklin Almanac

Today’s item of the day is a which is up for bid on eBay. It has BIN price of just $129.00

The seller tells us this: One of 144 copies of the first and more elaborate of the two books (plus one pamphlet) produced by the book collecting club The Duodecimos in the late 19th Century. The Duodecimos was an exclusive club numbering 12 members, among them printer Francis Wilson, collector Paul Lemperly, publishers W. Irving Way and Herbert Stone and author Eugene Field. For this facsimile of the only surviving copy of Franklin’s first almanac, no expense was spared. The Club members acquired various journals, diaries and other 18th Century blank paper, so the facsimile portion would be printed on actual paper of the time. The printing of the facsimile was done at the De Vinne Press, using an old oak hand press and other 18th Century printing techniques. (12 copies, one for each member, were printed on vellum). For the introductory pages they had special hand-made paper bearing the Club’s watermark manufactured, and had cast a new reproduction of an 18th Century font. The book is illustrated with 14 portraits of Franklin, mostly collotypes mounted on hinges bound in to the book, but with the frontispiece being an original pencil signed etching by Thomas Johnson from a pastel then owned by John Bigelow of New York, who wrote the introduction to this volume.

If you are interested in owning this outstanding piece of Ephemera, click the link above and place your winning bid.

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

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