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Auction: 26066 - Historical Documents, Autographs and Ephemera
Lot: 1127

England
English State Lotteries 1694-1826
A Collection
1694-1826 The definitive and most comprehensive collection providing a detailed and well researched history of the English State Lottery, first mentioned in 1569. The purpose of the State lottery was to finance a significant part of the government's annual receipts until lotteries were abolished by Parliament in 1826.
The collection in three albums includes tickets, shares, advertising items, letters, prints, engravings and tokens, with a focus on the individuals who were involved in the sales and promotion of the lottery and their occasionally dubious activities.
Volume one covers illegal backstreet lotteries, images of the draws, tickets (2) to win a "House, Diamond Ring or Parcel of Plate", three rare tickets relating to the "Million Adventure" of 1694 bearing portraits of Queen Anne and Thomas Neale, the head of the Transfer Office, many examples of lottery tickets issued under the auspices of the Lottery Commissioners, 1731 receipt as part of "raising one million two hundred thousand pounds by Annuities and a Lottery", coloured printings of advertising items and lottery tickets (most of which were bearer unless names were stated on the reverse).
Volume two covers lotteries as part of the national debt, those authorised by a private Act of Parliament, Ireland, Guernsey, the Art Unions and the new British Tontine.
Tickets in the form of tokens (2 present) were sold to win the famous Jernegan silver cistern (now in the Hermitage Museum), objects were offered as prizes, Pigot's Diamond Lottery of 1800 is represented through tickets and related ephemera, elaborate City of London tickets for 1806 are included, as are those for the Sunderland Bridge Lottery of 1816, and the Glasgow and Irish State Lotteries (1780-1800) are represented.
Volume three deals with the Bish family, prominent in lottery sales and promotion, with Thomas Bish snr dabbling in illegal lottery insurance. Bish advertising items, tickets signed by Thomas Bish jnr, many elaborately printed in colour run all the way to the last lottery held in 1826. An important section within this collection.
A photocopy of "English State Lotteries 1694-1826, A history and collectors guide to the tickets and shares" privately published in 2001 is included as an essential reference on the subject.
It would be challenging now to assemble a collection so comprehensive in scope and detail (500 + items)


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Estimate
£12,000 to £15,000

Starting price
£10000