The Eastern Telegraph Company, Limited 1892 Page Turner with a Map of the World

London: The Eastern Telegraph Company, Limited, 1891. A wonderful wooden page turner decorated with a map and calendar for 1892 and was probably a promotional giveaway by the Eastern Telegraph Company, once the world's largest cable operating company. A page turner is the phrase commonly used for the paper knife to neatly cut the uncut pages of a book, back when publishers did not take care of this generally-speaking. In order to avert or minimize unwanted tears as the knife is moved forward, the edge of a page turner is rounded into something duller than most other knives. This also allows page turners to be of use as book marks. This particular page turner is 333 by 33 mm. The world map takes up about two-thirds of each side, one side showing the Northern Hemisphere, the other side, the Southern. The emphasis of the map is on Asia and the East, so it skimps on its depiction of North America, with just a sliver of ocean coasts shown. The calendar occupies the handle area, with six months per side. The company name and emblem or logo is situated in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The map has light green coloring for bodies of water. It is possible the color was once bluer and/or deeper, and some of the print was probably also darker. Still, nothing is not legible on the map and the calendar. What wear there is few would not find more than acceptable. The Eastern Telegraph Company, founded in 1872, appears to have distributed page turners in other years, and it was probably for a long while its standard complimentary gift, and in other years it came with a calendar. The map, though, was not something always present.