Vintage Library Bookplates

This post features three vintage library bookplates (shown above) in my collection. All three were formerly in books that were probably discarded from the libraries they represent. I acquired each of the bookplates after they had been removed from the books by someone else. I just got the Library of Congress bookplate which was used by the library after 1814 when the library was burned by the British but not too long after that.  The Library Company of Philadelphia bookplate is from the James Cox collection. Cox sold his collection of almost 5,000 art books to the Library Company in 1832 for an annuity of $400. Because he died a year later, the Library Company got a real bargain. The third bookplate is from the Social Friends' Library at Dartmouth College, a student literary society. This bookplate was a gift from Lew Jaffe of Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie. There's a great story about the effort of the faculty to seize this library in 1817 in an earlier blog post. The student literary society libraries at Dartmouth were formerly merged with the College library collection in 1903. I have more images of vintage bookplates from my collection on the Library History Buff website.