Walpole Society CERAMIC COLLECTORS GLOSSARY 1914 1st Ed Deluxe Barber 1 of 25 For Sale

An exceptional, museum-tier acquisition for the discerning connoisseur of antiquarian bibliopole and ceramic history. Offered here is an exceedingly rare 1914 original first edition of The Ceramic Collectors\' Glossary, authored by the celebrated scholar Edwin Atlee Barber and privately printed for the prestigious Walpole Society.

While the standard trade print run was strictly limited to 175 copies, this specific volume is one of the legendary 25 deluxe copies produced exclusively for society members. It is meticulously printed on premium, heavily textured Nordeling hand-made paper, featuring beautiful, uncut deckle edges that exemplify the pinnacle of early 20th-century private press craftsmanship.

Adding immense historical value and provenance to this lot are two extraordinary pieces of ephemera discovered tucked within its pages: the original, unmailed Walpole Society subscription order blank from 1914, alongside a vintage 1994 acquisition invoice detailing its prior purchase.

Bibliographic Details

• Author: Edwin Atlee Barber

• Publisher: Privately printed for The Walpole Society (Hillacre Press)

• Publication Date: November, 1914 (First Edition, First Printing)

• Limitation: Deluxe Member\'s Issue; one of only 25 copies printed on Nordeling hand-made paper

• Pagination: Complete at 119 pages

• Dimensions: Approximately 9.75\" x 6.56\" (9 ¾ inches by 6 ⁹/₁₆ inches)

• Binding: Original paper-covered gray hardboards with a contrasting dark cloth spine and a pasted paper title label

Condition Report

• Interior: Excellent / Near Fine. The internal text block remains remarkably crisp, tight, and bright. The hand-made pages exhibit exemplary structural integrity with only the absolute most negligible, minimal foxing consistent with age. Free of modern marginalia, highlighting, or ownership stamps.

• Exterior / Binding: Good / Very Good. The spine cloth and front title paper label remain fully intact and clearly legible. The exterior paper-covered boards display authentic cosmetic wear, including light shelf rubbing, corner bumping, and age-related surface mottling/moisture discoloration primarily confined to the peripheral margins of the front and rear covers. This superficial wear is entirely localized to the exterior skin and does not compromise the structural soundness or tight alignment of the binding.

Distinguished Provenance & Lineage

• Unbroken Estate History: This magnificent volume is accompanied by its original January 1994 purchase invoice, showing it was acquired over 32 years ago by the noted collector Susan Kearney of Duxbury, Massachusetts.

• Fresh to the Market: Having remained undisturbed in the library of the same Duxbury estate since its 1994 acquisition, this is the very first time this pristine Deluxe copy has been offered to the public in over three decades.

About the Publisher: The Walpole Society

Founded in Boston in 1910, The Walpole Society stands as one of the most exclusive, historic private clubs of art connoisseurs and scholars in American history.

• The Ultra-Exclusive \'Rule of 30\': By constitutional design, active membership in the society was strictly capped at just 30 elite individuals at any given time, composed entirely of Gilded Age industrialists, museum directors, and premier collectors (such as Henry Francis du Pont).

• The Architects of Americana: The society essentially wrote the blueprint for early American antique collecting. They funded and printed these hyper-limited, ultra-premium glossaries not for commercial bookstore sale, but purely as private, beautifully bound reference assets for their own elite membership shelves.

This is a vanishingly rare opportunity to own a cornerstone of ceramic reference history in its most exclusive typographic format.

Please reach out if you have any questions. Thanks for looking!!