Newest Addition to My Collection

1834 billhead for Lumsden & Elsmie teas dealers and grocers, wine, spirit and fruit merchants of 95 Union Street Aberdeen Scotland. Double scrolls which list more products the firm sells: pickles, fish, sauces, spiceries, wax and sperm candles, curious old brandy, French liqueurs, segars, and fancy snuffs.

Wonderful center engraving of a harbor scene. Two ships sit in the foreground, one a large merchant ship and a much smaller boat. Background shows spires, a lighthouse and other buildings. Engraved by S. Leith.

Items purchased by Alex Cochrane, Esq. were 1 dozen fine port and 1 dozen London Brown Stout. There is also a handwritten note that the “bottles to be returned.”

In Pigot & Co.’s National Commercial Directory of Scotland 1837, John Lumsden located at 95 Union Street is listed as a grocer, wine & spirit merchant and ship owner.

William Elsmie is listed as a grocer and tea dealer at 189 Gallowgate.

LEITH, Samuel lithographic printer Banff and Edinburgh
[believed to be Low Street] Banff 1830-34
Samuel Leith & John Smith 30 Hanover Street, Edinburgh 1835-39
Samuel Leith 9 South St Andrew Street 1840-55
printseller 65 Princes Street 1846-47
Received award from Highland Society of London for quality of lithographed work in 1835. The partnership with John Smith, formerly of J. & W. Smith broke up in 1840, the business being continued by Smith. Leith brought Friedrich Schenck, artist and lithographer and W. Wahler from Germany and set up a new business. A year before his death in 1857, he retired and started up a print-selling business in Princes Street. The National Library of Scotland has Catalogue of the interesting collection of pictures and engravings of the late Mr Samuel Leith which will be sold by auction by Mr T. Nisbet 13 February 1858.

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THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

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