ON EARLY NUMISMATIC PHOTOGRAPHY

 
Paine and d'Angers

"In last week's E-Sylum, Pete Smith described Sylvester Crosby's 1875 Early Coins of America as being the first photographically illustrated numismatic book to be published. This is incorrect. Even if we use 1873 as the date of Crosby's book (as that is when the first fascicule was published), there are a few numismatic books illustrated photographically from before then:

• 1866: Nathaniel Paine, Remarks on the Early Paper Currency of Massachusetts
• 1867: Robert David d'Angers, Les médaillons de David d'Angers
• 1869: Charles Clay, Currency of the Isle of Man
• 1871: Alfred Sandham, Medals Commemorative of the Visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales to Montreal
• 1872: Alfred Sandham, McGill College and Its Medals

 
Clay and Sandham McGill

"This is not including things like Naramore's Photographic National Bank Note Detector (1866) or things like proceedings volumes (the 1864 volume of the Proceedings of the Manchester Numismatic Society is the earliest I know of).

"I am currently working on a survey of early numismatic photography, and hope to complete it in the next few months (though it may not be published for a while after that)."

 
Sandham Prince of Wales

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
SYLVESTER SAGE CROSBY (1831-1914) (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n41a20.html)

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