London, Henry Hills and Iohn Field, Printers to His Highness, 1657.

First edition. The most substantial part of the Act, entitled ‘A Book of Values of Merchandize imported, according to which, excize is to be paid by the first buyer’, includes a forty-page alphabetical list of imported commodities, each recorded with the respective payable duty.

£250

[Bordeaux, c. 1787.]

A very rare advertisement card of a provincial bookseller from Bordeaux, a scarce piece of trade ephemera.

£75

[Besançon?, 1772?] 

A seemingly unrecorded issue of this decree governing tariffs on paper and cardboard in Louis XV’s France, with no imprint but with the colophon ‘fait à Besançon le 18 avril 1772, signé, Lacoré’. 

£175

Rome, ‘nella stamperia della Rev. Camera Apostolica’, 1815. 

Rare edict governing goldsmiths, silversmiths, and traders in gold and silver operating in Rome and the Papal States, issued by Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca (1756–1844) in January 1815 as Camerlengo to Pope Pius VII.

£475

New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1909.

Second, definitive edition. ‘The nucleus of the present volume is a series of four articles published by Mr Jacobs in The Engineering Magazine from September, 1906, to January, 1907, under the title “Organization and Economy in the Railway Machine Shop”. This was followed in June by a paper on...

£220

[v. Oelreich], 1763.

First Swedish edition, scarce, of this history on the treatment of foreign residents in Britain, Reflections on the Expediency of a Law for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants (1751–1752). This book comprises only the main body of Part II (1752), ‘Important Queries occasioned by The Rejection...

£200

London, [n.p.], 1722.

First edition of the by-laws of the London Assurance Corporation, which, along with The Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, was constituted and granted sole rights, excepting private individuals, to the granting of assurance and bottomry by ‘The Bubble Act’ of 1720. The right to self-govern, reflected...

£550

[London, n.p., 1711].

First extended account of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation. The earlier publications had been just four pages long; this work furnishes us with plantation account details and testimonies, chronologically arranged with...

£650

London, printed for H.M. and sold by J. Whitlock, 1695.

First edition. The Royal Fishery Company, incorporated in 1662, had great trouble finding subscribers. Initially, Charles II offered £9000 as an incentive to investors but on these only raising £3680 he withdrew his undertaking, instead allowing a lottery to aid the Company’s fortunes. After attempts...

£200

Turin, Mussano, 1840.

First edition, a very attractive copy with a good provenance, of this important monograph on credit and the banking system, and its role as support in the creation of wealth.

£850

Zürich, H. Girsberger, 1945.

First edition of Niehan’s work on the idea of self-sufficiency in the age of Mercantilism, published as volume 37 of the series Zürcher Volkswirtschaftlicje Forschungen, under the editorship of M. Saitzew. Niehans (1920-2007), a distinguished economist, taught at the Universities of Zurich, Johns...

£40

London, Charles Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1787.

Rare first edition of the consolidation act that revolutionised British handling of customs and excise and the problem of smuggling, in line with Adam Smith’s 1776 recommendations.

£2750

Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.

A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...

£650

Cremona, Gio[vanni] Pietro Zanni, 1671.

An exceedingly rare extract from the first edition of the treatise of practical geometry by the architect and inventor Alessandro Capra (c. 1605–c. 1685), seemingly prepared and sold as a manual for surveyors and early estate agents.

£575

London: Printed by T. Grismond, and are to be sold by T. Robinson … in Oxon. 1658.

First edition of Osborne’s history of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James VI and I, two exemplary leaders of the Protestant English cause, with which Osborne was much taken in his works.

£475

Risposta alle obbiezioni fatte alle Tavole statistiche. Milan, Pirotta and Maspero, March 1809.

First and only edition of this rare work on the nature and necessity of statistics by Melchiorre Gioia, presented by the author to the former Minister for the Interior, Daniele Felici.

£1250

Leiden, Jacob de Meurs, 1665. 

Lavishly illustrated first French edition of Nieuhof’s travels through China from 1655 to 1657. 

£3500

Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1668. 

First edition in Latin, beautifully illustrated, of Nieuhof’s account of his travels in China between 1655 and 1657, one of the most important early modern non-Jesuit studies. 

£5000

Paris, chez Valade; Brussels, chez Emmanuel Flon, 1774.

£100

Seville, 25 July 1576.

A commercial document from the heyday of Seville’s trade with the Indies. Drawn up for Sebastián de Baeza, a resident of the barrio of San Bartolomé in Seville, the document recapitulates a previous agreement of 25 June 1576 between, on the one hand, Hernán López de Segovia and, on...

£1200