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Ex library with normal Library marks, stamps, etc.
please see photos as they are part of the description.
No returns.
Up for sale is a scarce, authentic 1875 first edition of "Tobacco: Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce" by E. R. Billings. Published in Hartford, Connecticut, by the prestigious American Publishing Company, this comprehensive work is a landmark 19th-century text on the agricultural, cultural, and commercial history of tobacco. Given its extensive detailing of cultivation and trade, it holds immense historical crossover appeal for collectors of Southern Americana and North Carolina agricultural history.
This volume is heavily illustrated with beautiful, intricate vintage woodcut engravings by popular artists of the era, capturing everything from planting fields to manufacturing processes.
Condition Details (Please Read Carefully):
This is an authentic ex-institutional library copy that shows clear signs of age and preservation wear:
• Cover & Spine: Housed in its original 1875 brown cloth boards featuring the beautiful, blind-stamped embossed tobacco leaf design on the front cover. The spine has been reinforced with historic clear library wrap and black library tape along the joints. A library classification label (NC 633.71 BIL) is affixed near the bottom of the spine. Expected shelf rubbing and corner bumping are present.
• Title Page: Contains a prominent vintage purple ink stamp from the Sheppard Memorial Library in Greenville, N.C. at the bottom margin.
• Interiors: there is writing on the flyleaf and masking tape at the binding in front and back. The interior text block pages are remarkably clean, crisp, and bright—avoiding the heavy foxing or brittleness often seen in books of this age. The detailed frontispiece engraving facing the title page remains fully intact and unmarred.
Despite the exterior library reinforcement, the remarkably clean interior pages and original decorative cover boards make this an excellent, highly readable reference copy of a very elusive 19th-century agricultural text. Perfect for regional history enthusiasts, tobacco country collectors, or rustic library displays.
