A List of Medals, Jettons, Tokens, &c. in Connection with Printers and the Art of Printing.

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Creator

William Blades (1824–1890).

Title

A List of Medals, Jettons, Tokens, &c. in Connection with Printers and the Art of Printing.

Publisher

London: [Privately printed],

Date

1869.

Description

One of 100 copies printed for private circulation to collectors, curators, and numismatics dealers. [And:] Paul Dupont. Silver printer’s token of Johannes Gutenberg and Alois Senefelder, [ca. 1836], diam. 1⅜ in.

My interest in A List of Medals derives from its close association between the screw-press technology employed in letterpress printing and in the impression of commemorative images and texts onto more permanent gold, silver, and bronze medallic forms. This work also illustrates the personal collection of William Blades and his own desiderata list of printing medals, which appears in multiple, detachable sheets of different colors.

As a collector of printing-related medals, I love this book. My collection includes a portion of medals that Blades also owned, as well as an extremely rare silver token—one of his few desiderata (Plate 3Q)—for the Parisian printer and lithographer, Paul Dupont, that profiles both Gutenberg, the inventor of printing by movable type, and Senefelder, the inventor of lithography.

Source

Earle A. Havens