Heath, Laban. HEATH’S GREATLY IMPROVED AND ENLARGED INFALLIBLE GOVERNMENT COUNTERFEIT DETECTOR, AT SIGHT.Boston: Innes and Niles, Stereotypers and Printers, 1866/1867. Banking House and Counting Room Edition. Second edition. Newman 2-BH-3(c). Small 4to, original full brown morocco, both covers decoratively paneled in gilt within triple gilt fillets; HON. HUGH MCCULLOCH. impressed in gilt in center of front cover; spine with five raised bands, ruled, lettered, and decorated in gilt; all board edges and inner dentelles intricately decorated in gilt; chocolate endpapers; all page edges gilt. 39, (5) pages, including two final leaves featuring four Heath microscope illustrations printed two apiece on one side of each leaf, facing; finely engraved American Bank Note Company portrait of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch bound in place of usual heraldic frontispiece; Treasury Department facsimile letter; unnumbered and unpunched Heath bank note facsimile plate; 12 finely engraved plates of bank notes or elements, with tissue guards, interspersed in the text, comprising impressions of genuine and counterfeit fractional currency notes (Plate 1), 10 engraved plates numbered 2-11 depicting genuine bank note design elements, and an impression of a counterfeit $100 First National Bank of Boston note (Plate 12). Plate 5 printed in green ink; Plate 12 printed in green and black ink and hole-punched as issued. Calligraphic inscription presenting the volume to McCulloch on behalf of the author on opening blank. Binding rubbed and a bit loose, but sound; Plates 4 and 9 are detached from the binding and loosely laid in; light marginal chipping to loose plates. Very good.<p>Newman 2-BH-3(c). A deluxe presentation copy of Heaths Counterfeit Detector, prepared for Hon. Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury from 1865 to 1869. Eric Newman discussed the presentation copies in his article "Heaths Counterfeit Detectors: An Extraordinarily Successful Comedy of Errors." There, he wrote that "In addition to standard editions of Heaths publications, there were special editions prepared for dignitaries and for special uses. Public officials customarily were recipients of books with ornate leather bindings and having their names stamped on the covers in gold letters. Each such issue is unique and several have survived." We are aware of the following deluxe presentation bindings of Heaths Detector that have been offered in the numismatic market in the modern era: those presented to Col. Nehemiah G. Ordway (lacks Plate 1); First Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Richard McCormick; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles F. Conant; numismatist Robert Coulton Davis; Superintendent J.R. Kendrick of the Concord Railroad; and one copy that was bound in the same manner but not personalized for presentation. All of these were Banking House and Counting Room editions (varying printings of the second and twelfth editions), and the bindings are all very similar.Ex Heather Hardin-Hudson Collection, previously in the library of Dr. Ivan Gilbert.
