MISCELLANEOUS AND ALASKA

100.   SOLD Anchor from a Ship.  The anchor was dredged-up from the San Francisco Bay ca 1900.  From there, the anchor spent the next 80 years securing an unknown restaurant in the Bay Area as a decoration.  It is probably from a Gold Rush era vessel, one of the hundreds that were abandoned or scuttled in the Bay during the 1850’s.  5’ x 3’.  $1,050

101.     SOLD Blackjack Table from the Binion’s Horseshoe Club.  The Binion’s Horseshoe Club was located in Las Vegas; this table dates from the mid 1960’s.  Deck only.  The table has repaired tears along either side of bank tray.   Bank tray included.  Felt faded and uncleaned.  Cigarette burns near player’s edge.  Fred (as in Fred Holabird Americana) used these tables as desks for the last 25 years.  They were decommissioned from this line of work when we moved to our newest office a few years ago.  Now it is time for a new home.  6’ 4” x 3’ 4”.  $225

102.    Blackjack Table from the Money Tree Casino, Reno, ca mid-late 1970’s.  Deck only.  Bank tray missing.  Several cigarette burns in felt near player’s edge.   Felt bright and uncleaned.  See above lot for the story.  5’ 4” x 3’ 3”.  $150

103.    Coast Survey Maps, 1851.  This hardbound book contains 58 plates of both the East, West and Southern coasts.  The United States Coast Survey performed the fieldwork and published these coastal maps in response to the Gold Rush to California.  Mostly, the maps were generated to provide routes and safe navigation within the inter-coastal waterways and bays.  Exterior is dirty with minor wear at binding corners.  Edges of plates are worn with foxing.  Maps in excellent condition.  Front cover title “Maps Coast Survey” in gold gild lettering.  $1500

104.    SOLD Directory. Bancroft’s Hand-Book Almanac for the Pacific States, 1862. Edited by William Knight, H. H. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco, 1862. Copyright 1861 by H. H. Bancroft. Towne & Bacon printers. 4.75 x 6.5”, light brown cover. Wear at both ends of spine, with tears in cloth in places. Lettered (debossed) boards, gilt filled lettering on front cover. 191pp plus advertisements in the end papers and fly leafs. Not in Howes, Cowan, Rocq, Quebedeaux. It is too late for consideration in Kurutz. This little book is really not an almanac at all. Only 32pp are devoted to the almanac style. The remainder of the book is set up like a directory, and that is exactly what it is. Pages 80-186 are devoted to a business-like directory for the western states of CA, OR, WA, and NV. The key merchants are listed, as recognized by Wm. Knight the editor. Each state is divided into sections, county by county. Includes descriptions of the counties with physical and historical information, often including population. In mining matters, information is sometimes given regarding the largest mines and mills. Politicians are also noted. This book is part of a series of 4, published from 1860-1864. They are an invaluable reference for western matters, covering towns and places not covered in many other directories.  They were published during a period of time that was particularly weak in western directories, such that they offer the only information available for some particular regions. They were omitted by all of the bibliographers and R. Quebedeaux in his Primary Sources book on western directories probably because they have the word “Almanac” in the title, and were therefore considered worthless. They are anything but. The 1860’s volumes publish information on Nevada Territory not found elsewhere, and I have never seen them referenced in professional papers except my own. They are invaluable in mining research, though admittedly, this 1862 volume containing 1861 data is very early. The 1864 volume has three times the information.   $375.

105.    Fremont autograph.  Letter from Fremont to Daniel Webster seeking his help in his suit on the Mariposa Estate, California, 1852.  4pp letter handwritten by Fremont and boldly signed John Charles Fremont. Fremont was seeking assistance to clear title to his Mariposa Estate, the huge land parcel of 44,386 acres that Fremont purchased with the help of Thomas Larkin from the Mexican Government prior to the California gold rush. In December, 1848 Fremont and a team of scientists began the search for lode gold on the estate. At the time, Fremont thought there was enough placer gold to satisfy everyone, and he was after the big bonanza – the lodes that were the source of the placer gold. Though ill-advised, he let squatters settle in to mine parts of the estate, thinking them inconsequential. It was anything but. He leased small parcels of land out to Europeans, then Americans from 1850-1852. Among the companies formed to look for gold was the Le Nouveau Monde, and the Philadelphia and California Gold Mining Co.  The leases were so tough to get that shifty dishonest men began to seek ways to acquire the land. One method was to litigate, another to lease from a second or third party. Several of the competing parties brought suit against Fremont to try to force him off the land. One of the worst of these was the Merced Mining Co. These suits did not stop until after 1860. Meanwhile, with the Josephine and other mines producing gold like crazy, Fremont had what appeared to be an endless stream of cash. But he was a poor cash manager, and outspent the fortunes that came in.  With the onset of Civil War, Fremont went back into action. He was discharged in 1862, $2 million in debt from his inability to manage the gold mines, causing him to sell the property in 1863 to avoid bankruptcy. This letter was written in New York, just days before Fremont left for Europe to try to secure more funding for his gold operations. It was, in fact, the reason he was in New York in the first place. Here he requests Webster, one of the most powerful men in Washington, acting as Secretary of State to President Fillmore in 1850, to investigate the validity of the title. He discusses the fact that he had a title opinion prepared by two lawyers, hoping Webster could take the time to read it. He rightly assumed it was one of the most important title suits in the Country. Webster himself had also been burdened by debt, and might lend a friendly ear, particularly on matters of private land. Webster, however, had trouble of his own. He was again running for president in 1852, but his health soon failed. He died just six months after this letter was written. Letters discussing Fremont’s California gold rush holdings are extremely rare, with few in private hands. [ref: DAB, FH – Filer I] $8,750.

106.    Fremont letter signed, 1845.  Wonderful letter addressed to Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale regarding some fossils Fremont sent for study.   Black ink on crème paper.  8 x 9.75”, folded at left margin. Two old rice paper tape repairs to the reverse. This letter was said by the previous owner to be addressed to Professor Silliman.  Benjamin Silliman was a chemistry and geology professor at Yale. He held the first illustrated lectures in mineralogy and geology, a first of its kind in the world.  He built extensive collections at Yale, where his work in the field and with students earned him the reputation as Yale’s most distinguished professor. He retired from Yale in 1853 after more than 53 years as a professor there. Silliman had evidently been working with Fremont on the geologic and paleontologic nature of his expeditions, excited at the prospect of getting fresh material for Yale from the new western expeditions. When this letter was written, Fremont was about to set out on another expedition to map the California Trail. They left in the third week of June from a camp on Boon Creek, about six miles west of Westport, Missouri, the edge of the western frontier on what one of the members called “the Great Northwestern mule wagon and pack saddle Exploring Expedition.” By October 11, 1845, Fremont and his men, including Kit Carson, were back at Salt Lake “camped in the Great Basin beside the lake the Franciscan friars Escalante and Dominguez had seen in 1776,” said historian Ferol Egan  in his monumental work Fremont: Explorer for a Restless Nation, 1985. Fremont spent two weeks studying the Great Salt Lake.   This Fremont letter is important because of its tie to his exploration ventures and because of its direct tie to scientific work – in this case geology and paleontology.   At Salt Lake, Fremont had found calcium carbonate secreted tubes that he was unsure if they were fossils or not.  He noted that the local Indians were eating some of the worms, thus the tubes were not true fossils.  The leaves in the “indurated” clay were probably fossils, though. In this case, his words refer to a hard clay; mudstone or shale.    [refs: Dict. of American Biography; Egan]  $4750.

107.    Gold Rush Era Book.  Orton, J. W.; The Miner’s Guide and Metallurgists Directory.  New York.  Published by A. S. Barnes & Co.  Cincinnati-H. W. Derby & Co.; 1849.  Booksellers small orange label on inside front board: “from: Marvin & Hitchcock Booksellers Montgomery Street San Francisco.”  There is a vignette of a placer gold mining scene below the title.  James Orton also wrote Underground Treasures several years later, a book highlighting some of the fascinating aspects of geology.  86pp plus 10 pages advertising in the back.  Geologic cross section faces the title page.  4 X 6”, gilt lettered spine “The Miner’s Guide”, brown cloth with floral designs.  Wear to ends of spine.  Cover slightly dirt soiled.  Some brown spots in first few pages.  Wear to corners exposing board material.  The book states in the preface that it is intended for those “without a large library,” and to be an indispensable companion to enable the miner to assay, extract…the useful metals.  The basis of the book is a discussion of the metal and their properties, with methodology of identification.  Orton describes the assay process with the old terminology “docimastic art.”  He discusses quicksilver amalgamation in detail and other sound, and clearly written, but there is insufficient detail from which to render quantitative assays for gold ores containing silver; thus the miner would get incorrect higher assays for gold using the methods described in this book.  For the general gold ores found in most of the Mother Lode region of California, this methodology would be adequate, though nowhere near as accurate as it could be.  This is clearly a book intended for California miners - a  attempt to educate them about metals and, to some degree, about geology.  Unlike some other similar works of this period, Orton knows his subject matter very well and has illustrated important points in carefully flowing language that makes sense (granted that this description here is written by a mining geologist, it might otherwise be undecipherable to others).  While Orton has used the term “Directory” in the title, it is not a directory in the sense of a bibliophile’s use of the word.  Rather, the reference to “directory” here is with regard to a directory of metals, though Orton did not use these terms.  No mention is made of California by name.  Provenance: this book came with a large collection of gold rush maps and diaries from Forest Hill.  This book is not listed in Howes, Kurutz, Graff or Streeter and has no auction sales history.  We believe it was an essential tool for the educated man who came to California as a 49’er.  It is a  classic 49’er reference book.  $4500

108.    Map.  Phelps Traveler’s Guide, 1849, published by Ensigns & Thayer, New York.  Bright red boards with gilt, generally in excellent condition with map, 20 x 25”.  The map is spectacular, lined completely around the edges with engravings of the presidents and prominent men of the Country’s history, along with the state seals. Each state has hand colored borders. The west is inset at the lower right corner. The map data predates the California gold rush, showing Sutter’s Fort, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and the Quicksilver mines at New Almaden. Pyramid Lake and the Humboldt River occupy the Nevada section which shows Fremont’s trail. Tahoe is not shown. Most of Nevada is blank. The New Mexico and Colorado areas are similar. The condition is excellent, and as near mint as could be expected.  The text of the book has stage, steamboat and canal routes. 3.5 x 4.75” book. Cover has St. Louis steamer (side-wheeler) and an early train and the title “Phelps’s Travelers Guide through the United States.”  Costume made slip case.  $3000

109.  SOLD    Shipwreck. Narrative of a shipwreck by a Seaman. 1825. 34pp.  no place, no publisher. 1884 wrap around cover by P. Manning.  Incredible story of a shipwreck and one man’s struggle to survive after most of his mates had perished. Very interesting text about a man who had been shipwrecked four times, “four times returned to his family penniless and distressed.” The fourth voyage involved the complete destruction of the ship and most of the crew, and is dutifully described. On the ship Wyton, they left from the Humber River near Liverpool in September 1823.  He gives the names of comrades who had amputations, but not his own name. The ship may have gone to Quebec and violently crashed into rocks somewhere along the coast of Nova Scotia after leaving the St. Lawrence River in a snowstorm.  “The carpenter fell out of the fore rigging and was severely hurt. At half past two the gale still increasing, with a constant drift of snow…”   “At 6am set the fore staysail and main stay sail. Shortly after they all blew to pieces…”    The survivors were on foot, ill-prepared for the journey, trying to find a village. After crossing mountains, leaving more of their dieing comrades behind, they found a cabin owned by an Irish couple. Survivors from another wreck were there as well. The author described the terrible fate of his companions, with legs amputated without a surgeon. The priest even tried to convert him to Catholicism during last rites, but he refused. The wrecked ship was sold at auction, two people showed up, and paid two guineas for it to benefit the few survivors.  The author found himself in need of self amputation of part of his leg, and describes the gruesome affair. After 6 months, he was off to return home. They left from Cheticamp in May, 1824. In July, they sailed from Pictou for Liverpool. Another narrative in the back by Thomas Crompton. Possibly missing one page at the end of the second narrative. Incredible story. What a movie this would make. Probably a very rare print.  $350.

110.    SOLD Uranium.  Bureau of Mines Handbook: Facts Concerning Uranium Exploration and Production.  Written by John E. Crawford and James Paone in 1956.  References cited after each chapter.  Excellent condition, soft cover, 130 pp. $45

111.    United States Steel Corp.  Written by J. M. Camp, 1914, this is a second edition outlining the methods of sampling iron ore in mining, stockpiles and other areas.  This was an effort by the steel industry to universalize sample collections to ensure quality for both the producer and the consumer.  Excellent condition.  61 pp.  $75

112.    Wells Fargo & Co Express Official Directory, 1914. Lists the agents, railroads and steamships operated by Wells Fargo, Offices in the United States, Mexico, and Common Points.   The directory has the names and addresses of the principal agents and a list of all the Wells Fargo offices in the United States in alphabetical order.  5.5 x 7”.  Soft brown cover with red and blue logo.  Torn piece from upper right on front cover and larger piece missing from back cover.  160pp with just a few pages of ads.   Rare.  $475

ALASKA (see more Alaska pieces in the Late Additions section)

113.    Alaska. Alaska Commercial Co. and Louis Sloss, president vs. M. Wasserman, 1896. Transcript on Appeal. 184pp. Case involves a lease for seals, etc. Important early environmental related case. $100.

114.    Alaska. Seward. Pictorial saloon trade token.  This token is from the Northern (saloon) in Seward. On the reverse is a picture of the area, and the words “native copper from Seward, Alaska.”  Seward was a copper and gold mining camp just after the turn of the century. This piece dates to about 1910-1915. $150.