131 TOBIESEN DUBY (Pierre-Ancher). Traité des... Lot 131

131 [TOBIESEN DUBY (Pierre-Ancher). Traité des monnaies des barons ou représentation et explication de toutes les monnaies... qu'ont fait frapper les possesseurs de grands fiefs, pairs, évêques, abbés, chapitres, villes et autres seigneurs de France. Paris, Imprimerie royale, 1790. 1 vol. in-4 containing the 120 plates of the work. Bound in half aubergine calf of the 19th century. Spine decorated. plates only, without the title page, the portrait and the text. All the plates of the book are present, 110 + 10 of supplement. They are finely engraved on strong paper. Wet stamp "collection N. Pendaries" on the reverse of the first flyleaf. Numbering of the plates in pencil. The author wrote two works of numismatics, the Traité des monnaies des barons (120 plates) and the Recueil général des pièces ornamented with 31 plates. These two complementary treatises," writes Drujon in his Essai sur la destruction volontaire des livres, "offer as much interest as usefulness for the particular history of the cities and provinces of France. So few were sold at the time of their publication that around 1794, the author's family, no doubt considering them as embarrassing books, had a good part of them destroyed. In 1807, Renouard acquired all the remaining editions, i.e. about 600 copies in more or less good condition. He chose 150 of them and had the others destroyed. The Recueil des pièces is even rarer than the Traité because for this first one Renouard had only plates and very little text and could hardly complete some copies. This is also a likely explanation for the existence of our copy without text. (Drujon, Essai sur la destruction volontaire des livres, N° 257 and 258). Brunet, him, claims that the treaty of the coins of the barons is rarer than the collection of the coins. (Brunet, V, 870) Light marginal spotting on the first 14 plates. Two small worm holes in the lower margin, sometimes forming a very fine gallery.