1840 Audubon Birds Of America 1st ed: COMMON CROSSBILL

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C I R Q L A R Original antique prints, books, maps and atlases Image Name COMMON CROSSBILL. Plate # 200. Author/Artist John James Audubon: The Birds Of America. Date of Publication Published by J.J. Audubon, New York, 1840. Lithography by J.T. Bowen. Type of Print Original hand colored lithograph. Size of Image Royal octavo size: App. 6 3/8" X 9 5/8". Condition In overall very good to excellent condition. Remnant of previous binding on edge of sheet. Description We are pleased to offer this beautifully original hand colored lithograph by John James Audubon (1785-1851), from his monumental first edition octavo edition of The Birds Of America. Audubon was born in Haiti and upon his arrival in America, he began his ascendancy into recording natural history in North America. He completed this massive work, covering 500 hand colored plates all set in their natural surroundings, in just over four years. He originally sold the individual plates in 100 sets of five wrapped plates. Upon purchasing the one hundred sets of five plates, the subscriber then had the plates bound into a binding of his or her choosing. Only 1200 seven volume sets were published in the first edition. The first edition plates are easily distinguished from their later counterparts. First of all, the only edition that is fully hand colored are those prints from the first edition. In addition, later editions also had a darker background which was printed in colors as opposed to being hand colored. The overall condition of the plates is very good. They all have full margins, full contemporary (original) coloring and the fact that this set is so incredibly difficult to find and individual plates so correspondingly expensive (the complete set now runs upwards of $120,000) makes individual prints a solid investment. The years have been very good to these particular plates as you can see. You are bidding on a truly investment grade print with no associated apologies necessary.Printed on thick stock paper, these plates have amazing detail. They frame up very well and look great individually or in a grouping.We would be delighted to include a copy of the original title page if so desired: just ask!We also want to let you know that sometime in the next month (May 2009: exact date to be established/announced) we will be listing all 500 of the first edition J.J. Audubon Birds Of America prints in our storefront at very competitive "buy it now" prices. Please stay tuned...We encourage you to contact us with any particular questions you might have at .Thank you for looking and please be sure and look at our other auctions for other fine works by Audubon from the first as well as the 1860 editions of the Birds Of America . We also have other architectural, natural history plates as well as original maps, all guaranteed original.We do not use the eBay check-out system for invoicing so it is not necessary to email us at auction end. You will receive an email from Paypal letting you know the particular payment options available to you. We will also send you an email summarizing your winning bids along with one combined postal charge. We will email you this summary within 24 hours after the auction's end. Cirqlar is a SquareTrade seller in good standing and we will do everything we can make this a positive experience for you. We don't hold checks for clearance (we have yet to receive a bad check after over 22,000 transactions!). Again, we will be happy to combine purchases to save on your shipping costs. News flash! We are now using UPS for our North American shipments. Shipments are easy to track, and t is $100 of built in insurance. If you are one of our International friends, please contact us with your particulars (name of country, insurance requirements if any) so that we might get as accurate a quote as possible to get your purchase to you in a timely fashion. Please note that we now have (finally, mer... read more

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