J R Holcomb (4 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. First Edition. This is a human geography of the United States with slight highlighting, slight bumped corners, tight binding with maps and pictures, 287 pages. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Hardcover. Condition: New.

LeatherBound. Condition: New. BOOKS ARE EXEMPT FROM IMPORT DUTIES AND TARIFFS; NO EXTRA CHARGES APPLY. LeatherBound edition. Condition: New. Reprinted from 1954 edition. Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden leaf printing on spine. Bound in genuine leather with Satin ribbon page markers and Spine with raised gilt bands. A perfect gift for your loved ones. Pages: 30 NO changes have been made to the original text. This is NOT a retyped or an ocr'd reprint. Illustrations, Index, if any, are included in black and white. Each page is checked manually before printing. As this print on demand book is reprinted from a very old book, there could be some missing or flawed pages, but we always try to make the book as complete as possible. Fold-outs, if any, are not part of the book. If the original book was published in multiple volumes then this reprint is of only one volume, not the whole set. Sewing binding for longer life, where the book block is actually sewn (smythe sewn/section sewn) with thread before binding which results in a more durable type of binding. Pages: 30 Volume no.73 Marquis, R. W,Weitzman, Sidney,Holcomb, C. J. (Carl James), 1906-.

Condition: Near Fine. 8 x 17 1/2 inches. An advertising assemblage related to the Holcomb Speaking Telephone, washed and laid down on archival tissue, in the form of a broadside. The top and bottom portions of the assemblage are lighter in appearance, the center portion shows evidence of foxing before being washed. There is also evidence near the right edge as if the assemblage was in a frame at some point (perhaps for use in the Agent F. T. Viles' office?). J.R. Holcomb & Co. of Mallet Creek, Ohio patented an acoustic speaking telephone on July 9th, 1878. We find Holcomb advertisements in the Boston Weekly Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) during the same period when Bell Telephone and several other companies had employed agents to sell on their behalf. Holcomb issued a series of four page brochures for sales use (one such in OCLC #35360545). We've seen them dated 1879, 1880, and 1881 based on "testimonial" content. They have several distinctive and prominent woodcuts. The first is a "concept" woodcut showing a mounted phone in an Office and also a Residence with wires going into and out of a "Manufactury" (sic) and a "City". The second distinct woodcut is a "General and Sectional View" of the telephone receiver/transmitter. A variant of this woodcut shows just the outsides of the telephone sets. The earliest advertisements price the "set of Telephones" at four dollars. Wiring for the phone sets was available for 3 cents per rod, guaranteed to work over a mile's distance. The advertising piece offered here is an oddity we've not seen, and is organized in three parts. The top 1/3 includes the "concept" woodcut from the original four page brochure. The bottom third includes the "General and Sectional View" woodcut (of the later variety). The middle section contains wording that is common to the Holcomb advertisements, but has been compressed and reworded in places. This piece has no testimonials, and offers the complete set of Telephones for three dollars fifty cents. The lower price of goods, combined with the lack of technical descriptions leads us to believe this is somewhat later than the earliest advertisements for Holcomb, circa 1880. The marketing material for Holcomb telephones is scarce, and we've seen only a few examples in 20 years. Although the "History of Medina County and Ohio" (p. 786) boasts that the telephone was one of the best and sold 10,000 units, we find this highly unlikely given the paucity of remaining artifacts and literature. Holcomb however was clearly a good businessman, starting small and scaling nicely over years of effort. This was his first venture into the telephone space, having retailed novelties, school supplies, published a successful educational journal, and other ventures. F. T. Viles was probably Frank T. Viles of the Western Union Telegraph Company. He learned telegraphy in Waltham MA in 1872, then became operator and messenger for Western Union at Concord MA. He bounced around as a telegraph operator in various railroad and telegraph companies in New England until Feb 12, 1880 when he entered the service of Western Union Telegraph Company at New York. Back in New England in 1882, he worked in various places as night manager. He became inspector of the Western Union Telegraph Company's city line and leased wire service in Boston in Sept 1887. Viles was well respected, creating new office layouts and designs that were incorporated into Western Union operations. (Telegraphers of Today, pp 145-146). With regards this venture, we find no advertisements in period newspapers, nor any mention of it on Google. Likely Viles was caught up in the new wave of exciting technologies, fed up with part time work, and reached out to Holcomb as an agent to compete for business with agents already in place for Bell Telephone and others. In 1880 (shortly after this piece was created?) he headed for New York with a real job for Western Union. Coldbrook Springs could refer to two places in MA - one a railroad depot, the other a villa.