Have you ever watched the Antique Roadshow?  I received a phone call to come buy some old books.  I go and sure enough there is old books but also this 8 out of 20 volume set of what looks like books.  I told the folks that wasn't sure what the value on these items would be that didn't want to take them home but would use that trusty old cell phone to take some pictures and write down everything that could to research the items.  It was all written in Italian.  But could figure out some basic information that would lead me in my hunt to identify and price the items.  Well what a shock to find out that if it had been a complete set it would be selling in the range of $17,500.00.  I've copied the next paragraph of information to share what and how these items are described.

FORGOTTEN SOUVENIRS

In addition to the vedute prints—the brightly colored engraved views of cities

visited—the Grand Tour offered another very popular type of travel souvenir, the

now nearly forgotten cameos, or engraved gems of the eighteenth century. Such

objects of vertu originated in Greek and Roman times as seals but later became

prized objects of jewelry. The taste for these engraved antique gems was revived

in the eighteenth century as part of the classical revival and later reproduced as

miniature plaster casts, known as “sulphers.” Mounted in fake book bindings,

these plaster cameos are not the box of nougat candy they might appear to be at

first glance, but a minutely detailed cabinet of neoclassic knowledge and art.

Vue d’Optique vedute. Hand-colored, hold-to-light engravings of Venice. Augsburg, ca. 1850. Graphic Arts Collection.

Liberotti Impronte, Storia dell’Arte. Multi-volume set of plaster cast cameos. Rome, ca. 1820. The Scheide Library.

Paoletti Impronte, Storia Romana. Multi-volume set of plaster cameos, with their original furniture cabinet. Numismatics

Collection.

When I told the folks what the value for the 8 volumes was......................it was that moment of excitement.  Just like the antique road show.  Rare obiously out of print antiquarian set of well not books but plaster casts.  What a beautiful piece of history. BookWormNV