Thread: 1787 Gales & Martin

I showed this to Zak (Voidmonster) and he helped assure me that of course I needed to buy it. No regrets there. Just a few pics because the whole thing is digitized, but what we are looking at here is a (re-bound) first edition of the 1787 Gales & Martin Directory of Sheffield. I don't think there's a razor I own that I'm as excited about owning as this book. The paper has a very cool heft and feel to it. I would offer pictures of anything from the book, but everything is already on google books in good quality. For me, though, it's something else to have an original

Also, related, I only just missed this one, but a first edition of Perret's 1769 book went through this site, link here: The invention of the safety razor and description of new fleams and lancets by Perret – 1769 | Fleaglass Antiques For Sale

And Zak just picked up a reprint of the G&M done in the late 1800s, hopefully he will post about that here.

Very cool pick up ScienceGuy!

nice piece of history in your hand
love it

As requested, here's my copy of the later reprint.

This one's only a hundred years old! But, it's available in its entirety as a scanned Google Book.



It's a slim little book. A bit smaller than a trade paperback, a bit larger than a regular paperback book. It's posing with a John Shepherd and an Ann Rowland razor, both from about the time of the original publication.



This copy of the book came from the Sheffield library's research wing (and some of the pages have a little embossed stamp marking it as such). It's seen better days, with many repairs in it, but it's plenty sturdy for browsing.

One thing I noticed though is that the original book ScienceGuy got is subtly different, especially the maker's stamps. It's not a simple 'copy'. Clearly, that's worth investigating further. Especially since the previous Gales & Martin, from 1776, has what I believe to be serious printing errors (specifically for Ann Rowland's mark).

Wow that is an awesome find

Outstanding find !

you guys cant post those razors with the books !! i didnt even notice the books with them in there !!!