Lepidopterist's Unique Album of Butterfly and Moth Specimens
Hardcover
c. 1950?
by [lepidoptery]; [album]
c. 1950?. Hardcover. Near Fine. Decorative cloth over flexible boards; oblong, 270x180mm; 16 black cardstock leaves with 84 butterfly and moth specimens preserved in plastic sleeves tipped to the recto only, with typed labels and a few faint additions in ink; butterfly and moth wings are real, bodies (in color) appear to be carefully clipped from a printed source or created by hand by the compiler, and laid atop the wings. A sticker on the front paste-down indicates that the album came from Hartung's in Peking, and a faint inscription on the rear pastedown reads "Presented to me by my first real dancing teacher Mrs. Luda Kubasova May 20th 1935 for a memory book of my progress in dancing"; but the typed labels (typeface) suggest America or Great Britain, c. 1950 (if perhaps a bit earlier), and the specimens include butterflies and moths found in the Americas and the British Isles . Labels provide a numbered shorthand that suggest use with a concordane or other reference work, such as Pier-063, Papi-024, Dana-096, Saty-119, Nymp-188, Lyca-385, Hesp-523, Liby-316. So perhaps better understood by a lepidopterist, but certainly to be valued on a purely aesthetic scale, as specimens display beautifully and are in near fine condition (just the occasional tiny chip to the wing, and sometimes a body come loose). (Inventory #: D14244)