Marvin, William T.R. THE MEDALS OF THE MASONIC FRATERNITY, DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. BOSTON: Privately Printed, 1880. Small square 4to, contemporary brown three-quarter morocco, gilt, with marbled sides; spine with five raised bands, ruled, lettered and decorated in gilt; marbled endpapers; top page edges gilt. x, (7)–329, (1) pages; title printed in red and black; chromolithographic plate of "Arms of the Freemasons" bound in as a frontispiece to the Appendix; 17 numbered lithographic plates of medals interspersed in the text. Extremities a bit rubbed. Near fine. [with] Marvin, William T.R. MASONIC MEDALS. SUPPLEMENT. Drop title. No place or date of publication [prob. Boston, c. 1912]. Small square 4to, later black cloth, gilt. 5–252 pages [lacking 253–(257) and following blanks]; decorative headpiece and initial; 1 halftone plate of medals. Some cracking to opening leaves at gutter; very good. A very rare and bibliographically complex book, still important as a foundational reference in this area. Though 160 copies were printed of the main work, copies rarely appear on the market, perhaps because most appear to have been distributed through Masonic channels. Lyman Low claimed that "twenty copies perished by fire" and a postcard in the library of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts confirms that many copies were indeed destroyed in a fire in Marvin's office. It has never been reprinted. Marvin's Supplement is also rare, and nearly ever copy that has been offered at auction has been (as is this copy) incomplete. It was lacking from both the Champa and Bass library sales, and the example in the American Numismatic Society Library ends at page 254. Indeed, the most complete copy seen by us stops mid-way through the description of medal MCCLXXVII. Both the main work and the Supplement reprint material published by Marvin in the American Journal of Numismatics over a period of some 35 years. It is clear that some editing and correcting was made between the periodical form and its publication in book form. The book was printed in four parts, and probably distributed in two (I–II and III–IV). Clain-Stefanelli 14218. Davis 658. Sigler 1695. Main volume ex New Netherlands Sale 59 (1967), lot 111, where it is stated that "This copy is from the library of the great Virgil Brand (though not so marked)"; ex Harry Bass Library (Kolbe Sale 77, lot 421), with his bookplate. Supplement is ex Richard T. Johnson Library, with his name impressed in gilt on the front cover.