•  Rumball-Petre, Rare Bibles, 159; Darlow & Moule 4240; O’Callaghan 22; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 24–44; Evans 5127–28; Sabin 5191; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 47C; Hildeburn, The Issues of the Press in Pennsylvania, 1685-1784, 804. Contemporary calf over bevelled boards. Binding scratched and abraded with tears to spine leather. Hinges (inside) open. A printed poem has been affixed to the front pastedown, over a strip of cloth. Ownership inscriptions in German (in gothic cursive) and English on endpapers. Pp. 1–2 with loss of part of margins, some text, and part of headpiece, repaired with paper. Lightly age-toned with darker brown-spotting, some waterstaining, occasional dog ears, and some holing or chipping in the margins—some of the latter repaired with paper. First two leaves, i.e., main title-page and preface supplied in facsimile; the New Testament title-page is present.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Arndt and Eck cite Bender, who says “This first American Mennonite Hymnbook is not to be confused with one of similar title printed by Saur at Germantown in 1753, called erroneously by Seidensticker and Flory a Mennonite hymnbook.” Each portion of this item has a separate title-page, with the second section's title-page reading Sammlung altre und neuer Geistreichen Gesänge.

•  Arndt & Eck 2419; Shoemaker 2239.   Contemporary sheep, clasps; later spine labels; leather dry and abraded with significant patch missing from top of spine; cracked along joints and down the spine (this is not quite “about to break” but one can see that as possible “out there,” so it is “priced accordingly.”)  Pages clean, with just the usual foxing on early and later leaves including title-page.  (21769)

•  O'Callaghan 161; Shoemaker 8025; German Language Printing in the United States 2535. Contemporary calf, raised bands, covers blind-framed; a few chips and old abrasions, but pleasant. Lower clasp intact, top one missing. Front hinge open, joint starting; front free endpaper torn across with loss. German fly-leaf inscription. Usual foxing/staining only, and complete.

Provenance: 20th-century booklabel of Michael Zinman on front pastedown, along with pencilled ownership inscription of Margaret Lache.

•  Not in O’Callaghan; not in Darlow & Moule; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2724; Shoemaker 19698. Contemporary calf with raised bands; remnants of clasps. Calf scratched with some rubbing; spine a little warped. Some dog-earing and shallow tattering; lightly to moderately age-spotted throughout; pp. 17–18, 257-60 detached. No loss or obscuring of text due to the above, but two pages in Mark, pp. 101–104, lacking.

Binding: Contemporary sheep in the Cambridge style of three concentric panels on the covers, the inner- and outermost sprinkled and the middle one left natural. Round spine with raised bands. Black leather title label.

Provenance: Ownership signature of Edward Herrick, Feb. 7, 1831, on the front pastedown.

•  Shoemaker 37811; not in O'Callaghan; German Language Printing in the U.S. 3042. Binding bumped/abraded at corners, through to pasteboards; else quite nice. Usual foxing. Firm and complete.

Binding: Contemporary treed calf with clusters of small bosses in center and at corners of covers; red leather label on spine, gilt-filletted and -rolled above and below and gilt-lettered; remnants of clasps on edges of covers. All edges saffron.

Provenance: Rubber-stamp of Lee D. Snyder on front pastedown, verso of title-leaf, and reverse of many plates.

•  Cf. O’Callaghan 181; not in Darlow & Moule. Binding as above with some scratches; joints and edges rubbed. Small holes or chips out of a few pages with loss of individual letters, not affecting sense. Small hole in printed area of plate facing p. 119. Foxed with some soiling on the sectional title-page of the New Testament and a few darker spots elsewhere. A good, solid, satisfying copy.

The frontispiece shows the judgement of Solomon, and the engraved title-page has an engraving of John the Baptist, a popular saint among German Catholics. The remaining plates are very attractively done, especially that of the crucifixion, which stands before the sectional title of the New Testament.

Provenance: Late 20th-century booklabel of Michael Zinman on the front pastedown, over the inscription "Nathan Zwayer his Bible, 1852."

•  Not in Darlow & Moule; not in O’Callahan; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 164–65. On Allioli, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, I, 325–26. Textured roan, elaborately blind stamped; abraded and cracked. Pages and plates foxed with occasional waterstaining and small tears in the margins. Still imposing.

•  Shipton-Mooney 47375; Bristol B9047; Arndt, German Language Printing in the U.S., 965. Not in Evans; not in Parsons. Full calf, antique German-American style. Title-page with insect damage and some small loss of paper; mounted. Occasional bug-spotting. Uniformly age-toned. A solid copy.

Provenance: Front free endpaper with ownership inscription by Henry Binkly, dated 1833; several laid-in slips of paper include a recipe for hair dye and a concoction involving sulphur, sugar of lead, and bay rum.

•  Shoemaker 8591; First Century of German Language Printing in the U.S., 2565. Contemporary sheep framed in blind, spine with blind-ruled raised bands, abraded but solid. One clasp lacking, one present and working. Moderate foxing; one sectional title with pencilled annotations. Clearly a volume that saw both use and reasonable care. Plain, and pleasing.

The title-page wood engraving is signed “Whitney” — possibly Elias James Whitney.

•  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped pictorial vignette in blind-stamped frame; cloth with spots of discoloration, corners and spine extremities a little rubbed. Light to moderate foxing/spotting. Charming.  (23911)

Helmuth's Kurze Andachten, a short collection of morning, evening, and other occasional prayers, was issued with this edition of the hymnal and is usually, as here, bound in at the end.

Provenance: Late-20th-century book label of Michael Zinman on front pastedown.

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 31426; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2032. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 31686; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2034. Contemporary sheep over wooden boards with working brass clasps; spine with raised bands. Scattered abrasions with leather chipped away through to the board on front cover's outer edge. Some pages dog-eared, with spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period.

•  Sewn; in original wrappers.

Translated from English into German by W. Reichenbach, no doubt for the German Evangelicals in central Pennsylvania, this is the work's first German-language edition. Another came out in Philadelphia in 1831, and more appeared in the 20th century.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 20358; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 1740. Sheep with remnants of gilt on spine. Abraded and stained with two wormholes. Pages with some waterstaining and scattered age spots, not obscuring text; also some chipping in the margins, not affecting text.

•  Quarter sheep over marbled paper: chipped and rubbed; remnants of a paper title label on spine. Lightly browned with foxing/spotting as in common; dog-eared with some shallowly chipped corners resulting in no loss of text. Inked ownership inscription on recto of front free endpaper and of front fly-leaf.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 4172; Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung aus den Quellen, 572; Arndt, First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 1337. Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 4360; Arndt 1338. Anhang: Shaw & Shoemaker 4171; Arndt 1334. Contemporary sheep, spine with later and sympathetic gilt-stamped title and author labels, binding with brass and leather clasps (intact); leather rubbed and some chipped away with joints open though holding, and spine leather showing some cracking. Front pastedown, free endpaper, and fly-leaf with early inked ownership inscriptions; back pastedown with later pencilled notation; front free endpaper separated and back free endpaper lacking. Pages age-toned and spotted (as usual in German imprints of this period); some corners dog-eared. One leaf with portion of outer margin torn away, with loss of a few words. Condition actually rather typical, for this sort of volume!