TRADE CATALOGUE FOR BRITISH INDIA. Treacher & Co., Ltd. General Merchants. Bombay, Byculla & Poona [cover title].

TRADE CATALOGUE FOR BRITISH INDIA. Treacher & Co., Ltd. General Merchants. Bombay, Byculla & Poona [cover title]. Mumbay: The Times Press. 1906.

8vo. Publisher’s red cloth, upper board lettered in gilt, spine lettered in black; advertisements to pastedowns; pp. x [iv], xxi, [1 (blank)], ‘800’ (i.e. 802), xi–xviii (continued pagination from advertisements at front), free endpapers included in pagination; pp. ii–x and xi–xvii printed on pink paper, numerous lithographic in-text illustrations throughout, p. [iv] printed in pink, 23 ff. plates, of which 6 on pink paper, 9 in colour, and 2 double-page, pp. 352–530 (‘Jewellery and Hall-Marked Goods’) printed on thick paper; rebacked with original spine laid down, plate facing p. 732 with two central closed cuts, browning to 2 ff. tipped-in advertisements after p. 330; a very good copy; contemporary manuscript corrections to p. [i].

An extensively illustrated and very rare Mumbai-printed trade catalogue advertising goods for the British market in India, encompassing an extraordinary range of products, from gunpowder to soap, and everything in between, with numerous coloured plates.

Treacher & Co. were a prominent British-run firm operating as merchants, druggists, and chemists, based in Bombay (Mumbai) and Poona (Pune) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This extensive catalogue presents a vivid picture of colonial consumption and supply, advertising an exhaustive array of merchandise including toiletries; crockery; agricultural machinery and flower and vegetable seeds; pipes; sporting equipment and ‘Gymkhana kit’, including Brooks’ bicycle saddles for both men and women, bicycle pumps, dumbbells, and Sandow’s Obesity Reducer and Sandow’s Combined Developer; alcoholic drinks, as well as ‘Sparklet’s’ carbonation tablets and ‘Seltzogenes for the production of sodawater, lemonade, gingerade &c.’; parlour games, including board games, billiards, roulettes, and table bowls; cameras; books and medical remedies; jewellery; and more.

The catalogue features numerous plates, many chromolithographic or printed on coloured paper, advertising china sets, gunpowder, biscuits, tar and vinolia soaps, California poppy perfumes, Windsor & Newton’s paints, and hair lotions, inter alia. A contemporary owner has corrected in manuscript the names of two of Treacher & Co.’s directors to p. [i].

No copies traced on OCLC or Library Hub.

SKU: 2120925