1838 Portsmouth, NY Alphabetical Ledger with Hand-marbled Cover schmid and present and future that

and present and future that just knock me out

and I think the combination of the individual portraits and the hand-painting and the gold trim and the whole spectrum of places and characters represented in alphabetic order makes them just truly marvelous

A great little drawing of very proud looking black cat marching along with (still quite perky looking) mouse held in its mouth

though perhaps they were gaming chips of sorts for use at the race track

I found it at an estate sale of a man who served in Japan during WWII and brought a lot back with him

1838 Portsmouth, NY Alphabetical Ledger with Hand-marbled Cover schmid and present and future thatRare in my experience to come across an alphabetically tabbed ledger like this, and such a beautiful one, filled with the names of old Portsmouth, NH families someone from these parts would surely recognize. The letters of the alphabetical index are printed individually cut from somewhere and adhered one by one to the edges of the pages, with the pages to follow trimmed in order that each letter be visible from the front. To me all those letters lined