Early Guide to False Money

Beauvais, Guillaume, and François de Chassepol. A TREATISE OF THE REVENUE AND FALSE MONEY OF THE ROMANS. TO WHICH IS ANNEXED, A DISSERTATION UPON THE MANNER OF DISTINGUISHING ANTIQUE MEDALS FROM COUNTERFEIT ONES. TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL PRINTED IN PARIS 1740. London: Printed for J. and P. Knapton, at the Crown in Ludgate-Street, 1741. First English edition. 8vo, contemporary full brown speckled calf, both boards bordered in double gilt fillets; professionally rebacked spine with five raised bands, ruled in gilt; red morocco spine label, gilt; board edges decorated in blind. (8), xxxii, 227, (1) pages. Binding moderately worn; notation on first page effaced; occasional minor discoloration. Very good or better. The Treatise was first published in Paris in 1740. Beauvais’s Dissertation was first published in 1739; it was later re-translated by John Trotter Brockett, the Newcastle antiquarian, and republished in 1819. It is a notable early effort at distinguishing between genuine and counterfeit coins, and discusses Paduans, casts, retooling, struck counterfeits, metallic content, fantasies, etc. Scarce: this edition listed in neither Hirsch nor Lipsius (though the latter did include it in his unpublished Supplementum now at Sächsische Landesbibliothek Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek). Dekesel B186. Goldsmith 7853. Sigler 478. Ex A. Miller, with signature on front flyleaf; ex Edinburgh Museum of Science and Arts, with their ink stamps.