[INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION] [BRITISH BUSINESS HISTORY] Album of embossed or stamped seals and labels for British (largely Scottish) businesses, ca. 1850s-1920s

1920. Flexible boards. Very good. Octavo, unpaginated (about 100pp.). A blank ruled notebook, bound in limp black cloth, measuring about 4.5" x 7" (11cm x 18cm). 64 leaves used, either in whole or in part. On each of those leaves is pasted a number of seals, labels, or blindstamps for various businesses, most of which are located in England, Scotland, or Wales. These were arranged alphabetically, with blank leaves between each letter. The seals are generally in very good condition, though the pages have some waviness, probably from the glue used to affix them. We have not endeavored to do a total count, but, averaging more than ten to a page, there are, very conservatively, at least 750 labels in this volume. There are notable concentrations in Glasgow, Paisley, Belfast, Manchester, Dundee, and a few other cities, all of which were early centers of the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom (in addition to a handful of continental European businesses). While there are a number of labels, there are also significant numbers of blindstamps and ink stamps, some of which appear to have been neatly excised from envelopes, for the purpose of being preserved in this album. Among the countless examples are such businesses as Samuel Denison & Son Weighing Machine and Weighbridge Makers of Leeds, Dowson & Taylor Fire Engineers of Bolton, Neil Kelly & Co. Coal Merchants, Glasgow, James Morgan Nursery & Seedsman of Paisley, Price's Patent Candle Company Ltd, Belmont Works of Battersea, London, and countless others. A remarkable collection of ephemera which preserves and communicates the economic landscape of industrial Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries.