Apr 07, 2022 - Sale 2600

Sale 2600 - Lot 214

Price Realized: $ 1,690
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(RHODE ISLAND.) Large collection of billheads from Rhode Island and beyond. Approximately 1300 items, neatly sleeved in 9 binders (2.3 linear feet); condition generally strong. Various places, 1752-1975, bulk 1850-1910
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

A substantial and absorbing collection of ephemera. Just about any kind of mid or large-sized business involved in invoicing customers might have its own printed billheads. Represented here are everything from cracker bakers to silversmiths to toy stores to hotels. Many are illustrated, ranging from generic woodcuts to expertly rendered views of storefronts and factory complexes. Interspersed with the billheads are a few examples of illustrated letterheads used for correspondence. The great bulk of the billheads have been used for invoicing a wide variety of customers, allowing us to get a taste of the products offered. Many are marked as paid, either in manuscript or with an inked stamp, and many were docketed on verso. Several billheads from printers and stationers are included; if you want to get "meta," there is even an 1898 billhead from Worcester, MA for printing letterheads.

Billheads from Providence, RI comprise approximately half of the collection, arranged alphabetically by business name. 2 binders with approximately 250 billheads cover the remainder of Rhode Island, arranged by town. 3 binders with approximately 400 items extend beyond Rhode Island. Arranged by state, the bulk are from Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. A bill from the Danvers Lunatic Asylum in Massachusetts bills an inmate's guardians for 24 days' board plus mortuary expenses in 1891.

The glory days of commercial billheads were from about 1850 to 1910, but a handful of examples are included outside those bounds, with the earliest being a manuscript bill for pickle pots and jugs issued by a Newport merchant in 1752, and the earliest printed example being a 1794 invoice from Philadelphia haberdasher William Holdernesse. The latest is an illustrated 1975 letterhead from fine pen maker A.T. Cross Company. The bulk seem to be from the Yankee establishment which made up New England's middle and upper classes, but a few represent the immigrants who came in the late 19th century, such as 7 different examples from the wholesale grocers of the Ventrone family who catered to Providence's Italian community, 1897-1916; and funeral director Arsene Therien, "entrepreneur de pompes funèbres" in French-Canadian Woonsocket.

Much of this collection was exhibited at the University of Rhode Island in November 2001. Included with the lot is the exhibition catalog by Russell J. DeSimone, "A Survey of 19th Century Rhode Island Billheads" (#50 of 250). Provenance: collection of Russell J. DeSimone.