Nov 21, 2024 - Sale 2687

Sale 2687 - Lot 236

Price Realized: $ 585
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(WEST--COLORADO.) The Prospector's Guide: How to Find a Mine, How to Assay Your Own Ores (wrapper title). 16, [1] pages including wrappers. 12mo, 5¾ x 3¼ inches, printed card wrappers, splitting at fold, two chips in margins; light toning and minimal wear to contents. [Denver, CO]: [W.C. Calhoun], circa 1897

Additional Details

A booklet with "useful hints for the beginner--the 'tender-foot'--as well as for the experienced." Summarizes the color of different ores, and then offers pointers for prospecting in the Cripple Creek area of Colorado.

The booklet has no publisher's imprint. It may be lacking its title page, although we don't think so. The final leaf is lacking a conjugate, but appears to be laid down as a cancel, and page [3] appears to have been adhered to the inner wrapper.

The inside wrappers include advertisements for W.C. Calhoun's publishing house in Denver. They "still have a few copies left" of their "History of Cripple Creek," published in 1896; while their 1897 book "Colorado's Gold Fields" is described as "just issued." Calhoun published "Gold and How to Find It: Being a True Prospector's Guide" in 1898, but the one copy in OCLC is described as having only 12 pages including illustrations, so it is not the same work. We can find no record of the present work in OCLC, auction, or elsewhere.