Dear Museum-Lers

Stevens of Covent Garden, London were the dominant force in natural
history and ethnography auctions in Great Britain for over 100 years. I
am writing a precis of the STevens involvement in this business for the
New Dictionary of National Biography and am interested in finding the
whereabouts of sale catalogues and any other memorabilia / archives /
etc. My starting points have been Chalmer-Hunt's invaluable "Natural
history auctions" and ALlingham's "Romance of the Rostrum."

I know there are many auction catalogues and sales that did not make it
into C-H's compendium (I have found several of them myself) and I would
be very interested to hear from any one knowing of the whereabouts of
catalogues or the dates and other details of sales not listed or
incompletely listed therein. I would be particularly interested to hear
of catalogues of the sales of the stock or collections of James Tennant,
mineral dealer and Prof. of Geology at King's College (1818-1881; at
least 12 sales 1881-82 and no catalogues known to be extant); and John
Calvert, gold-miner and con-man (1825-1897; 5 sales 1897-98).

In hopes

Mick
--
Michael P. Cooper * Mineralist * [log in to unmask]