Dimensions 180 x 230 mm. Single leaf broadside. text in two columns. A trifle creased and dust-soiled.

An apparently unrecorded advertisement sheet promoting the Falmouth-based mineral tradesman James Jenkins Trathan. The remarkably thinly veiled advertisement is presented in the form of a dialogue between Mr. O and Capt. Y the latter of whom lavishes praise upon 'Trathan's Exhibition of Paintings, Engravings, Minerals, Shells, and Fancy Articles'. The pair, in strained terms, discuss Trathan's stock of some '20,000 pieces', including a 'variety of superior shells' and 'Elegant Chimney Ornaments'. Capt Y. proceeds to declare that 'there can be no doubt of his success' given the wide variety of branches Trathan is engaged in (Printing, Bookbinding, Bookselling etc.), before Mr. O, providing the concluding remark, delares his intention to pay the shop a visit 'before the best things are sold'. Michael P. Cooper's Robbing the Sparry Garnitude: A 200 Year History of British Mineral Dealers, 1750-1950 (2006), records James Jenkin Trathan (1788-1880) as 'in the mineral business by 1823, [and]...a printer from at least 1815 when his earliest known work, Directory of Falmouth, was produced' (p.265).