The First Texas Brand Book, A Legendary Rarity

45 [Cattle] Jackson, W.H. and S. A. Long. The
Texas Stock Directory or Book of Marks and
Brands. San Antonio: Printed at the Herald
Office, 1865. Square 12mo, original teal printed
boards (light edge wear to boards, small pieces
of cover printed missing), brown muslin spine
(reinforced), 402 pp., (two leaves in expert sympathetic facsimile – pp. 235-236, and pp. 289-290), 50 pp. [ads]., complete. Housed in custom calf clamshell case with protective mylar covers.

First edition of an extraordinarily rare brand (the first Texas, preceded only by the Deseret Brand book of 1850). Adams HERD 1142, which calls for salmon or gray boards, not noting these teal boards (Graff 2180 is in salmon). This copy without any manuscript corrections, as noted by Adams in some copies. Reese SIXSCORE 62: “This fragile book is seldom found in good condition.” Vandale TEXIANAMETER 95. Not in the Streeter Sale. The last copy found in a dealer’s catalogue was Goodspeed’s in 1967; certainly some copies had sold since then, but not very many; needless to say, no copies for sale online.

I appraised the Library of Senator Ralph W. Yarborough in the mid-1990s, and he would regale me with stories of his acquisitions while I was working; this book was one (of two) that he regretted passing on in the early 1930s. He was a Federal Judge in Austin when someone approached him with a copy for sale for ten dollars. But after carefully thinking it over, he decided to pass, because he was concentrating on Confederate Imprints at that time, and by 1865 San Antonio was in Union control, and the book was not a Confederate imprint.

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