[Trade catalogue – Soda fountains]; Chester, Thomas; Firm of John Matthews

Carbonated Beverages. The art of making, dispensing & bottling soda-water, mineral-waters, ginger-ale & sparkling-liquors. [issued together with:] Catalogue of apparatus, materials, and accessories, for making bottling, and dispensing Carbonated Beverages, including soda-water, mineral spirits, & sparkling liquors

New York: P.H. Reilly, Wood-Cut and Color Printer, 25 Rose Street, 1882.

Quarto (27 x 20.5 cm.), 108, [4], 166, [2] pages. Profusely illustrated. Text in two columns. Table of contents at rear. FIRST EDITION. An early – perhaps the first – history of carbonated beverages. Issued together with a trade catalogue for the soda water supply firm of John Matthews of New York, an important manufacturer of bottling equipment, soda fountains, and carbonation apparatus. The fountains get progressively larger and more elaborate, and with wonderful names: “The Citadel”, “The Horicon”, “The Adriatic”, “The Fire-Eater”, “The Nepenthe”, and “The Snow Queen”. There I also an outdoor soda fountain, “The Street Spa”. Also included are the auxiliary equipment of the carbonated water industry, like siphon boxes for home delivery of soda water. The historical work and the trade catalogue were issued in celebration of the firm’s 50th Anniversary. Some pencil scribbles to a few pages. Text block shaken; free front endpaper lacking. In publisher’s brown and gilt-decorated green cloth, corners rubbed and extremities a bit worn. Better than good. With the ownership signature of “Leopold F. Schmidt, Deer Lodge, Montana” and a more recent “Olympia Brewing Company”. Very scarce. [OCLC records two copies with this pagination ((Loma Linda Univ. & Hagley Museum), and four copies with just 108 pages, presumably just the history; Noling, Beverage Literature, page 104 (for the 108 page version].

Price: $900.00