Gold and Your Money First Edition - Willard Atkins - Bauman Rare Books

Gold and Your Money

Willard ATKINS

Item#: 104736 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Gold and Your Money

Gold and Your Money

“FEW ECONOMIC FAITHS ARE STRONGER THAN THE FAITH IN GOLD AS THE BASIS OF A SOUND MONEY”

ATKINS, Willard E. Gold and Your Money. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1934. Octavo, original orange cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of Atkins' argument against Irving Fisher's "commodity dollar" and FDR's "gold-purchase" program, a major work in American institutionalist economics, with frontispiece of Wall Street displaying a gold-colored square and captioned, "All the Monetary Gold in the World in the Wall Street Canyon."

Published as the nation plunged into the Great Depression and the same year as the Gold Reserve Act, Gold and Your Money argues against Irving Fisher's "commodity dollar" and George Warren's "gold purchase plan" under FDR, insisting they miss the real issues by claiming "our disorders are all due to maladjustment of money." Atkins was chairman of the economics department at the Washington Square College of New York University and a leading figure in American institutionalist economics: "a movement in American economic thought associated with such names as Veblen, Mitchell and Commons." His analysis affirms institutionalism's call for "the integration of economics with other social sciences" and its dissatisfaction with the "casual empiricism of classical and neo-classical economics" (Blaug, 701). "First published, February, 1934" on copyright page. With frontispiece and numerous illustrations and graphs. Bookseller ticket.

Book fine; light edge-wear, slight toning to spine of scarce near-fine dust jacket.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
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Calf Binding material made from cowhide—versatile, durable, usually tan or brown in color, of smooth texture with no or little apparent grain. Readily marbled (“tree calf”), mottled, diced, colored, polished, tooled in gilt or blind, even scented (known as “russia”). Reverse calf, with a distinctive suede-like texture, is occasionally used.
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Collation Process by which the contents of a book are inspected for completeness, checking against internal evidence, the table of contents and/or plate list, and reference works. Also a shorthand bibliographical description of a book’s composition by its leaves and signatures, rather than its pages. A-C, for example, would indicate a quarto volume composed of three signatures or gatherings of eight pages each for a total of 24 pages.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
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Half Title Leaf preceding the title page that bears the book’s title, originally used to identify the unbound text block. The book’s binder would often remove and discard the half title at the time of binding. Remaining half-titles are therefore of interest to collectors.
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Japanese Vellum Expensive handmade paper often used in deluxe editions.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
Wormhole Tiny pinhole-sized trails left by bookworms as they eat through a text block. Much more common in older books printed on handmade papers with a high rag content than in books printed on manufactured papers made from wood pulp with a higher acidic content.
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