Investigation Into the Causes of the Gold Panic. Report of the Majority of the Committee on Banking and Currency. March 1, 1870 -
James A. Garfield
1870 - Government Printing Office, Washington - First Edition
House of Representatives, 41st Congress, second session, Report No. 31.
‘…on the 23rd of September the market had risen to 162; the Treasury decided to sell four millions of gold; and within fifteen minutes the price fell from 160 to 133. A conspiracy was alleged with government officials, including even President Grant, directly or indirectly engaged.’
Black Friday, September 24, 1869 was caused by two speculators’ efforts, Jay Gould and James Fisk, to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange, with the alleged encouragement and the accused involvement of President Ulysses S. Grant.
This is the important and rare report and transcripts of the subsequent dramatic Congressional investigation, which was chaired by James A. Garfield. The investigation was alleged on the one hand to have been limited because Virginia Corbin and First Lady Julia Grant were not permitted to testify. Garfield's biographer, Alan Peskin, however, maintains the investigation was quite thorough. Garfield was chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency at the time (later the twentieth U.S. President, but assassinated only four months into his term).
The investigation was set up to examine the following topics: First. The Gold Exchange and the Gold Exchange Bank; their history, the character of their ordinary operations, and their relations to the gold panic of September. Second. The alleged conspiracy of September, to raise the price of gold; the persons engaged in it, and the instrumentalities made use of. Third. Whether any officers of the national government were directly or indirectly engaged in the alleged conspiracy.
More details
Price HK$ 7,500
1870 - Government Printing Office, Washington - First Edition
House of Representatives, 41st Congress, second session, Report No. 31.‘…on the 23rd of September the market had risen to 162; the Treasury decided to sell four millions of gold; and within fifteen minutes the price fell from 160 to 133. A conspiracy was alleged with government officials, including even President Grant, directly or indirectly engaged.’
Black Friday, September 24, 1869 was caused by two speculators’ efforts, Jay Gould and James Fisk, to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange, with the alleged encouragement and the accused involvement of President Ulysses S. Grant.
This is the important and rare report and transcripts of the subsequent dramatic Congressional investigation, which was chaired by James A. Garfield. The investigation was alleged on the one hand to have been limited because Virginia Corbin and First Lady Julia Grant were not permitted to testify. Garfield's biographer, Alan Peskin, however, maintains the investigation was quite thorough. Garfield was chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency at the time (later the twentieth U.S. President, but assassinated only four months into his term).
The investigation was set up to examine the following topics: First. The Gold Exchange and the Gold Exchange Bank; their history, the character of their ordinary operations, and their relations to the gold panic of September. Second. The alleged conspiracy of September, to raise the price of gold; the persons engaged in it, and the instrumentalities made use of. Third. Whether any officers of the national government were directly or indirectly engaged in the alleged conspiracy.
More details
Price HK$ 7,500
An Essay Upon Money and Coins -
Joseph Harris
1757-58 - Sold by G. Hawkins at the Middle Temple Gate, London - First Edition
A finely bound first edition of ‘this influential 1757 work, considered by the Victorian economist J. R. McCulloch as 'one of the best and most valuable treatises on the subject of money that has ever seen the light', argues that it is vital to a country's economy that the value of precious metal in its coinage remains constant’ – Cambridge University Press.
‘One of the best eighteenth-century performances in the field of monetary analysis’. – Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis.
More details
Price HK$ 13,000
1757-58 - Sold by G. Hawkins at the Middle Temple Gate, London - First Edition
A finely bound first edition of ‘this influential 1757 work, considered by the Victorian economist J. R. McCulloch as 'one of the best and most valuable treatises on the subject of money that has ever seen the light', argues that it is vital to a country's economy that the value of precious metal in its coinage remains constant’ – Cambridge University Press.‘One of the best eighteenth-century performances in the field of monetary analysis’. – Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis.
More details
Price HK$ 13,000
The Jungle -
Upton Sinclair
1906 - Doubleday, New York - First Edition
‘Pierces the thickest skull and most leathery heart.’ - Winston Churchill
‘The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair.
‘Sinclair's nightmarish narrative of the immigrant Rudken family instigated a series of legislative measures that were highly successful. His lurid scenes of a meat packing industry that ground both rates and fingers into sausage aroused the middle class to demand sanitary conditions for food preparation.
Yet far less effective by comparison was his severe indictment of the working conditions that regularly reduced laborers to impoverished insanity. As Sinclair later wryly observed, “I aimed for the heart and hit the stomach of America”.’ – Emory Elliot, The Columbia Literary History of the United States.
More details
Price HK$ 9,400
1906 - Doubleday, New York - First Edition
‘Pierces the thickest skull and most leathery heart.’ - Winston Churchill‘The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair.
‘Sinclair's nightmarish narrative of the immigrant Rudken family instigated a series of legislative measures that were highly successful. His lurid scenes of a meat packing industry that ground both rates and fingers into sausage aroused the middle class to demand sanitary conditions for food preparation.
Yet far less effective by comparison was his severe indictment of the working conditions that regularly reduced laborers to impoverished insanity. As Sinclair later wryly observed, “I aimed for the heart and hit the stomach of America”.’ – Emory Elliot, The Columbia Literary History of the United States.
More details
Price HK$ 9,400
Glibson -
George Tichenor
1933 - Farrar &, New York - First Edition
‘Meet Mr. Glibson, a boomtime banker, who’s glided through depression and still lives high, wide and handsome......
This is the story of how he became the great Blabit of banking. The most withering portrayal of financial boobery in high places, savage, ruthless, funny, wise and courageous.’
A kaleidoscopic view of many lives in the business turmoil leading up to and away from the crash of 1929. As Public Relations Counsel, later, banker, Glibson is successful because he stands for nothing and though he is unscrupulous and ambitious he is understandable and even likeable. The story is good reporting, good dialogue, sometimes honest and sometimes theatrical. Occasionally reminiscent of Dos Passos. A book for men, and may get a challenging sort of press. - An early review.
More details
Price HK$ 4,200
1933 - Farrar &, New York - First Edition
‘Meet Mr. Glibson, a boomtime banker, who’s glided through depression and still lives high, wide and handsome......This is the story of how he became the great Blabit of banking. The most withering portrayal of financial boobery in high places, savage, ruthless, funny, wise and courageous.’
A kaleidoscopic view of many lives in the business turmoil leading up to and away from the crash of 1929. As Public Relations Counsel, later, banker, Glibson is successful because he stands for nothing and though he is unscrupulous and ambitious he is understandable and even likeable. The story is good reporting, good dialogue, sometimes honest and sometimes theatrical. Occasionally reminiscent of Dos Passos. A book for men, and may get a challenging sort of press. - An early review.
More details
Price HK$ 4,200