?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(CRIME.) Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. American Bankers Association, Book of Photographs. 26 bound text leaves, interspersed with 15 bound photographic plates, 49 leaves of neatly mounted scrapbook additions as intended, and 47 blank leaves, with 3 circular instruction letters laid in. Oblong folio, 10 3/4 x 12 inches, contemporary 1/2 morocco, rebacked, moderate wear; the final page of text crudely laid down to the front pastedown, a bit of the title page text clipped out, otherwise minor wear. No place, [1895], with additions through 1898
A gallery of criminals created by the Pinkerton agency for the use of banks across the country. The 300 mug shots are coded as forgers, sneak thieves, burglars, or bank swindlers, and each is paired with a detailed description including occupation, alias, identifying scars and tattoos, and date of arrest. Finally, a series of 101 "General Information" bulletins provide more detailed descriptions of mostly forgery and swindling cases, often with facsimile handwriting samples. At least four women are depicted and described, all of them working as "stalls for sneaks."
The volume was issued with 180 mugshots and descriptions as a partially blank book, with later supplements and bulletins intended to be cut out and pasted into designated sections. A collation is available upon request. 3 recorded in OCLC, and not traced at auction since 2008.
