$1,659
Three Carved Whalebone Whale Stamps in a Box, Twelve Ivory Items, and Fourteen Pieces of Related Ephemera, c. 1850s, three hand-carved bone whale stamps with whale figural handles, depicting a Right whale, a Sperm whale, and an indistinct whale tail, mounted in a lift-out leather-lined wood tray carved to conform to each stamp, and also a leather-covered carved bone ink container, in a dovetail-constructed mahogany box, the tray lifts out to reveal a compartment containing three 1857 issues of the weekly New Bedford, Massachusetts, newspaper Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchant's Transcript , an ivory and brass folding measuring device, and eleven ivory disk playing pieces, probably sailor made, two letters of correspondence, two addressed to Alexander H. Cory (1795-1860), a merchant of a successful family of merchants in Westport, Massachusetts; a Custom House document, six papers (merchant shopping lists and receipts) relating to Ruth Cadman (who is related to the Cory family), and a letter from a Quaker father, Clother Gifford (1800-1871), and brother William W. Gifford (1831-1903), of Westport, Massachusetts, addressed to "Ezra Gifford/Barque Winslow/Captain Simons/Atlantic Ocean, (the box lacking a cover), box ht. 4, wd. 7, lg. 10 in. Note: Whale stamps were inked into a whale ship's log, and used to record types of whales and the number of barrels of oil rendered from them.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2012-08-11
