Clues and Conclusions (Bran and Crowe Secondhand Books)

I don't really know how to structure this yet.

Printed Ephemera from Hamilton Golding

Hamilton Golding has a manuscript codex for sale by auction at Bonham's before Easter. This leaflet has a first draft of a catalogue entry for the lot. Decoding the abbreviations, the exterior is half hide, metal boards, Folio, with bosses, clasps, and corner-pieces. The interior is vellum folios, manuscript, historiated initials, Latin inscribed in various hands, with a Latin manuscript vellum letter laid inside. It's 500 years old at least. Oddly, it doesn't say what the contents are, apart from historiated - decorated with histoires, i.e., figures of men or animals, rather than with floral or formal designs. If it's named like Codex Sinaiticus that's not mentioned either.

Document Analysis

It was typeset and printed on Saturday 17 Mar 1934 by a jobbing printer.

Occult

A wishlist of occult codices. Number 1 is reputed to be bound in iron in the lost original. Number 4 is reputed to be bound in steel.

1. Book of Iod
2. Book of Skelos
3. Emerald Tablet
4. Firenze Tome
5. Ghorl Nigral
6. Key Of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis)
7. Lesser Key Of Solomon (The Goetia)
8. Parchments of Pnom
9. Sepher Ha-Zohar (Book Of Splendor)
10. Sepher Yetzirah (Book Of Formation)
11. Testament of Carnamagos

Document Analysis

Typeset in Rockwell, a very new typeface from Monotype released this year. Printed with an Albion hand press. A jobbing printer with a Monotype system and the very latest Monotype matrixes, and an iron hand printing press designed in 1820 but still manufactured today? That's no ordinary jobbing printer.

Craft (papermaking)

It's printed on laid (i.e., handmade, chain lines & wire lines) art (i.e., coated, glossy) paper, normally used for expensive limited edition books of etchings or prints.

Bibliography 1-point spend

Golding's ephemera was printed by the Fanfare Press in St Martin's Lane, London. They aren't a jobbing printer as such. They do fine printing and advertising work.

Hamilton Golding

Credit Rating

You've (i.e., Frances Bradley) never met Hamilton Golding before. His accent marks him as upper middle class.

Golding is a catalogue agent. (Sebastian & Malcolm know that already, you'll learn much more about Golding at the bookshop)

Walled Up Manuscript

Bibliography

Thomas Pettigrew served as librarian to the Duke of Sussex from 1818 to 1845. His three-volume catalogue of His Grace’s collection, the Bibliotheca Sussexiana, covers only a portion of the whole, mostly theological and religious works from all over the world.

Threadneedle Street

Bibliography (Malcolm Collins)

The six men with Golding are partners or senior staff from these booksellers:

1. Edward G. Allen & Son Ltd
2. Ellis
3. E.P. Goldschmidt & Co. Ltd
4. Maggs Bros.
5. Myers & Co.
6. James Tregaskis & Son

The Knowledge

This is Alf Jackson's corner. He's got a better whistle since the last time you came past here.

Bibliography (Frances Bradley)

That's Ernest Maggs! The man who negotiated with the government of Soviet Russia to acquire not only a Gutenberg Bible, but also the Codex Sinaiticus.

Bargain

A wealthy Italian arrived in London on Friday morning, stored something in the Bank of England before he went to his hotel, returned after lunch with Hamilton Golding and spent the afternoon in the Bank. Golding returned to the Bank on Monday morning as it opened.

Assess Honesty

Alf is telling you the truth.

The Knowledge

Percy Clarke is a cabbie. He's easy to find. You know where he stops for his tea, where he garages his cab, and so on.

Regent Street at Air Street

Streetwise 1-point spend

The bespectacled man (i.e., Evelyn Hathaway, bookseller) is an associate of Compeyson Kane, the fence. When Hathaway needs to dispose of stamp collections, coins, or weird family heirlooms profitably, he does so through Kane.

Flattery 1-point spend

Hathaway's bibliophily is fine bindings.