• Retailer’s catalogue of hardware, household items, toys, and novelties. Germany, between 1830 and 1850.

Curatorial note:

Tin soldiers, toy brass cannons, and Belagerungsspielen (siege games) are priced in ink along with dolls’ heads, yo-yos, miniature kitchens, playing cards, and magic lanterns. The war toys for sale predate the upsurge in demand for miniature armies that began around 1870 and continued through World War II. The hand-colored lithographed leaves of children’s toys are scattered among pages of faucets, buckles, bells, combs for people and horses, needle cases, piano strings, lamps for the Sabbath or Hanukkah, stirrups, quill pens, opera glasses, and egg noodles. Unfortunately, the title page has been removed, so the identity and address of the businessman who offered this extraordinary selection of merchandise is a mystery.

Collections:
Title:
  • [German illustrated trade catalogue of toys, games, metal goods, and household products of various kinds]
Language:
  • German
Call number:
  • Oblong 6903807
Extent:
  • 149 leaves : illustrations ; 24 x 37 cm
Format:
  • Book
Description:
  • A German-language trade catalog, comprised of 149 leaves of depicted products with color-printed illustrations pictured and describing them in German, with hand-inked price information added in some cases; each leaf depicts from one to more than twenty items.
  • Illustrations: Color-printed objects include: buckles, clasps, decorative tins and small containers, lottery toys, toy soldiers and toy figures, files, lanterns, candle-sticks, brushes, mirrors, combs, rings, pocket-watches, eyeglasses, optical magnifiers, flatware, and other household goods, as well as small musical instruments, flintlocks, crossbows, and sabers
  • Tentatively dated from the style of the goods and the nature of some of the toys.
Publisher:
  • [Nuremberg?] : [publisher not identified], [approximately 1840?]
Subject:
  • Commercial catalogs
  • Shopping
  • Shopping—Equipment and supplies
  • Sales catalogs
  • Trade catalogs
Binding note:
  • Contemporary quarter brown leather and marbled paper-covered boards.
  • Princeton copy 1: A large onlay label, presumably identifying the name and address of the vendor, has been removed from upper cover, leaving only vestiges.
Created:
  • 1840-01-01T00:00:00Z
Date:
  • 1840
Location:
  • Special Collections Oblong 6903807
Identifier:
  • ark:/88435/0k225f995
Edm rights:
  • No Known Copyright
Alternative:
  • [German trade catalogue]
  • [Catalogue of toys, games, metal goods, and varied household products]
Range label:
  • Logical
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