Results 57 - 64 of 71 results

An Ocean Cruise and Deep Water Regatta of the Pacific Yacht Club, July, 1884 - J. Sanderson, Gideon Denny (illustrator)

1884 - H.S. Crocker &, San Francisco - First and Only Edition
Rare and superb large folio of this very detailed celebratory account of the first successful yacht race from San Francisco Bay to Santa Cruz and a subsequent regatta across Monterey Bay from Santa Cruz to Monterey and back, it also includes a history of the club, lists of the members and a description of the fleet.

The glory of the work lies in the eight magnificent coloured lithographic plates by Gideon Denny (1830-1866), a renowned marine artist based in San Francisco.

Denny's fine plates include five views of sailboats at sea during the races, one of the fleet anchored off Santa Cruz, one of the clubhouse and grounds of the Pacific Yacht Club at Sausalito, and one group portrait of the officers of the club.
 
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Price HK$ 25,000



Sandow on Physical Training - Eugen Sandow

1894 - Gale &, London - First Edition
A scarce and remarkably clean copy of the rare first edition in it’s original pictorial covers, by the ‘Father of Bodybuilding’. ‘Sandow The Magnificent’ also opened one of the first ‘health clubs’ in the world. He was friends with Conan-Doyle, Thomas Edison and King George V. Large [26x20cm] and richly illustrated from photographs, drawings and diagrams.

Sandow's resemblance to the physiques found on classical Greek and Roman sculpture was no accident, as he measured the statues in museums and helped to develop "The Grecian Ideal" as a formula for the "perfect physique." He is seen as one of the first athletes to intentionally develop his musculature to predetermined dimensions. In
Strength and How to Obtain It Sandow lays out specific prescriptions of weights and repetitions in order to achieve his ideal proportion.

Sandow was the promoter and judge at the first bodybuilding contest ever held, at the Royal Albert Hall in London on September 14, 1901, and his importance was such that the trophy for Mr. Olympia is a statuette of Sandow, one could even say that Sandow was the inspiration for a recent Governor of California.
 
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Price HK$ 7,000



Racing to Win. The Book of the Gurnays - Fred Shaw, S. W. E. Bishop

1952 - Teddington All-British Racing Publishing Co., Middlesex - Second Edition
A nice clean copy of a scarce title on the world's greatest strain of racing pigeons, first published in 1949 and then expanded with added introductions shortly after Shaw’s death. Illustrated throughout with 31 full page black and white photographs.

‘His genius as a pigeon racer is equalled only by his genius as a writer, as this book will testify and as his contributions to the world’s leading pigeon journal,
Pigeon Racing News and Gazette, have confirmed on numerous occasions. Here, between the covers of this literary masterpiece, reside both the story and the wisdom of one of the greatest pigeon fanciers the world has known, the incomparable Fred Shaw, of Lancashire.’ - S. W. E. Bishop. 
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Price HK$ 2,500



The Art of Golf - Sir W. G. Simpson, Bart.

1887 - David Douglas, Edinburgh - First Edition
‘One of the great classic books on golf literature, it includes the first use of photographs to demonstrate the swing.’- Joseph Murdoch, The Library of Golf.

Dedicated to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Fully illustrated with photographic plates of old Tom Morris Jim Morris and Ben Sayers, and with figure drawings. Scarce copy with the original spine, and without being rebacked.

‘One of the classics of golf literature... a book of great charm and wit, one of the few of the very early books that can be read today with as much pleasure as the latest best seller.’ Cecil Hopkinson said, ‘It contained many diagrams and illustrations from instantaneous photographs, which was the first occasion on which the camera was called in to demonstrate correct methods of play.’ Bernard Darwin said of this book ‘one of the earliest and still the best book on golf.’
 
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Price HK$ 10,000



A Treatise on Cyder-Making - Hugh Stafford, Anonymous

1753 - Printed for E. Cave, London - First Edition
Legendary and rare first edition of this anonymous work, all of which is generally but erroneously attributed to Hugh Stafford who contributed the sixteen page ‘Dissertation on Cyder and Cyder-Fruit’ at the beginning.

Covering the entire process from identifying and growing the best cider apples, collection, pressing, fermentation, racking, preserving and remedial action for a variety of issues ‘
which are incident to Cyder’. With fold-out engraving of cider press (opp. p.32), in-text wood-cut diagrams to pages 43 and 68 (‘One side of the framed Press...’.) and wood-cut decorations to pages v, 47, and 61.

As Cyder therefore is generally allowed to be an wholesome drink, and as it is the natural product of our own country, he will surely be thought to contribute something towards the good of the public, who gives infallible directions for making it universally agreeable by varrying it so as to suit every palate, and by improving the flavour and the quality, both of the rough and the smooth, divesting it of its tendency to produce cholics, and giving it the sparkle of Champaign, without an eager and windy fermentation, and rendering it more spirituous than a small wine tho' less inflaming’. [Preface]

An influential work, Benjamin Franklin, who was partial to a drop himself, ordered three copies to be reprinted as pamphlets and distributed amongst the New England farmers after failing with their vineyards. It was plagiarised into various publications including encyclopaedias, cookbooks and later reference works related to cider.
 
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Price HK$ 42,000



1894-5 - Longmans, London - First Editions
‘To some, I believe, Paradise means yachting, and for my own part, I think a 200-ton schooner, a ten -knot breeze, and a summer sea hard to beat’. - From the introduction by Sir Edward Sullivan.

A famous yachting work, covering the golden age of yachting, including chapters on:
Ocean Cruising; The Evolution of the Modern Racing Yacht; Recollections of Schooner Racing; Fitting out a Fifty-Tonner to go Foreign; Some Famous Races; Yachting in America; Foreign and Colonial Yachting; and The America Cup Races.

Two volumes profusely illustrated with 57 full page plates and over 240 in-text illustrations plans and diagrams.
 
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Price HK$ 5,500



The Gentleman's Stable Directory or Modern System of Farriery - William Taplin

1791 - G. G. J. and J. Robinsons, London - The Tenth Edition, Considerably Enlarged and Carefully Corrected.
Two volumes in fine contemporary bindings, volume I with an engraved portrait of Taplin. The second volume contains "Experimental Remarks upon Breeding, Breaking, Shoeing, Stabling, Exercise, and Rowelling. To which are added, particular Instructions for the General Management of Hunters and Road Horses; with Concluding Observations upon the present State of the Turf".

During the latter part of the eighteenth century there appears to have been a considerable demand for veterinary knowledge, and William Taplin (d.1807), part of a group of British surgeons who switched to become veterinarians, sailed on this tide into a fortune by selling medicine for horses by agencies all over the kingdom and advertising them by means of his books.
 
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Price HK$ 7,500



The Lawson History of the America's Cup. A Record of Fifty Years - Winfield. M. Thompson, Thomas W. Lawson

1902 - Privately Printed, Boston - First and Limited Edition
A handsomely bound volume, over 400 pages illustrated with eighty-nine full page plates of which sixteen are colour and two are maps outlined in colour.

Detailing the history of the America’s Cup from 1851 to 1902, it’s challenges, yachts, protests, characters and an appendix of press articles. There is nothing finer.

Privately printed for private distribution only, and limited to 3,000 copies most of which were presented to prominent members of the yachting community.
 
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Price HK$ 16,000



 
Results 57 - 64 of 71 results