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- Rogers and Black’s Marine Roll
Rogers and Black’s Marine Roll, or List of the Names of the Permanently Registered and Enrolled Vessels Above Twenty Tons, Comprising the Mercantile Marine of the United States…” (with) Rogers and Black’s American Semaphoric Signal Book, for the Use of Vessels Employed in the United States Naval, Revenue and Merchant Service. Second Edition Revised and Corrected.
Rogers and Black (with) Rogers, Henry J.
F. Lucas, Jr., ( 1847), Baltimore
8vo, 22.5 cm. iv-208 pp. (with) xix, (2), 11-334, (1) pp. The second title with hand-colored ills.
Price: $2750
The “Marine Roll” gives a useful listing of every vessel, by port, over 20 tons, in American waters. Each vessel is assigned a unique code identity. This information was to be used in concert with the second title, the “American Semaphoric Signal Book.” This book has a preliminary 19 pages of hand-colored flag plates, showing exactly how this signaling system was to be used. Together, these two present the complete American signaling system as it stood in the middle of the 19th century. (This was probably the system used in item #6, the 1883 Wing book of telegraphic codes for whale ships.) Both titles are rare, and were usually bound and sold separately. No copies for sale online, and no auction records for either title. Worldcat shows 4 libraries holding copies of the first title; 8 copies of the second title, with the ominous “1 committed to retain,” whatever that means. As it happens, this scarce and important set was the property of Maximilian Joseph Eugene Auguste Napoleon de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg, Prince Romanowsky – whose copy this was, and who had it bound in highly gilt, full-burgundy morocco, with gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt, and Maximian’s coat of arms as a bookplate on the front pastedown. A unique item in fine condition.
