Dickeson, Montroville Wilson. THE AMERICAN NUMISMATIC MANUAL OF THE CURRENCY OR MONEY OF THE ABORIGINES, AND COLONIAL, STATE, AND UNITED STATES COINS. WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES OF EACH COIN OR SERIES. Philadelphia, 1865. Third edition. 4to, later 19th-century brown straight-grained half morocco with original 1849 double eagle designs on both sides; spine with five raised bands, ruled, lettered and decorated in gilt; decorative endpapers; top page edges gilt. Handsome lithographic frontispiece portrait of the author printed in two colors; frontispiece of the Libertas Americana medal; 271, (1) pages; text illustrations; 20 attractive lithographic plates of coins and currency printed in colors and metallic tints. Binding rubbed, but sound; free of the usual foxing, with fresh and clean pages; typewritten institutional label on front pastedown. Very good or better. An attractive copy of the final and best edition of the first work covering the entire range of American numismatics. Dickeson’s book is a landmark of American numismatic history. By nature a popularizer and showman, Dickeson toured the country for several years in the early 1850s lecturing on North American archeology and excavating Indian mounds. His Numismatical Manual (the al was dropped after the first edition) was also clearly intended to reach a mass market. Handsome in format and visual presentation, it was distributed by a major publisher of the day and written in an authoritative manner. Dickeson even envisaged, “if it should be approved, to prepare an edition for the use of schools.” Until the appearance of Breen’s magnum opus in 1988, it remained the only comprehensive work on American numismatics ever published. This copy is free of the foxing and staining that seems endemic with this title. Ex Wayne Homren Library.