1855 Dye’s Bank Note Plate Delineator. Sullivan Type A. Original Brown Half-Calf. Fine.An extremely important volume in the field of counterfeit detectors and the template for the pagination of the Hodges Bank Note Safe-Guard books that followed. This is, as originally bound, and in excellent condition. A great rarity.Titles and Specifications: Dye, John S. Dyes Bank Note Plate Delineator; A Spurious and Altered Bill Detector, Giving Printed Descriptions of the Genuine Notes of Every Denomination, of All the Banks Doing Business throughout the United States and British North America. Complete. Published by John S. Dye, Exchange Broker, Publisher of Dyes Bank Mirror, 172 Broadway, Corner of Maiden Lane, New-York, 1855. First edition. Folio 35.0cm by 21.5cm. Original brown half-calf with brown cloth sides. (2), (2), 3-94, 93-94, 95-287, (1) pp. Boarded typographical depictions of bank notes organized 3 by 9 to a page.Distinguishing Features: Pages 93-94 are in duplicate. Notes: Only two other examples have been offered at auction in the last 40 years (see Stacks-Kolbe-Ford Library Part I, 2004, lot 427 and Heritage-Newman Part XI, 2018, lot 15206). The deteriorated Newman copy was bound in embossed cloth with a printed lithographic front wrapper. The Newman part XI sale lot description, authored by David Fanning, elaborates on this landmark title: An extremely rare and important volume. Its groundbreaking status as the first work to provide detailed information on genuine bank notes is stated by Dye in the introductory text: The Paper currency of the United States is so varied in design, that the Counterfeiters could sport on the ignorance of the people, for no Detector that was ever published described the genuine note, the force of all publications that are devoted to money, being directed towards the spurious, altered and counterfeit. Dillistin (page 146) observes that Dyes groundbreaking work appears to have had a rather brief existence but that soon thereafter J. Tyler Hodges ... undertook the publication of Hodges New Bank Note Safe-Guard. The description of the notes and the style in which they are presented is identical with that of Dyes Delineator. Dillistin concludes Hodges pirated the Dye publication, but this is now held to be unlikely, given that Hodgess Safe-Guard was published for a number of years, apparently without any objection for Dye, and that the first edition of Hodges would seem to have been printed from the very same plates as Dyes Delineator--all of which suggests a legal transfer of ownership. Whatever its ultimate legacy, Dyes landmark 1855 work is very rare. Importantly, he also notes the ANS Library lacks a copy and it was not in Champa, Fuld, nor Bass libraries. Pleasing with its original boards intact and spine details. Internally, exceptional throughout with embossed pagination mostly; bright and handsome. For its type, a Fine and choice copy. Its condition and rarity provide a powerful combination. Contemporary notation on front leaf West River Bank [Jamaica, Vermont]. Ex: Kolbe Sale 97, March 22, 2002, lot 2. This is a groundbreaking volume indeed in the canon of counterfeit detectors and a beautiful example.From the MJS Collection.
