New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury

September 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 2, 1776).

“THE City of New-York, is now invaded by a powerful Fleet and Army.”

Samuel Loudon summarized recent events in the first line of his advertisement in the September 2, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Residents of the city and nearby towns already knew that the British had captured New York.  Most other readers likely learned about the British occupation of New York before reading Loudon’s advertisement, probably hearing about it before reading about it in any newspaper.

Still, delivering the news was an important precursor for what Loudon needed to share with subscribers to his newspaper, the New York Packet.  Due to the occupation, the “Inhabitants [of New York] are obliged to seek a Retreat in the Country.”  Among those who sight refuge in the countryside, Loudon “remov[ed] his Printing-Office to FISH KILLS, where the Provincial Congress now reside.”  That location offered safety as well as access to news about the state government, once he managed to open a printing office there.  “With regret,” Loudon continued, “he is under the Necessity of Informing his Customers, that he will be obliged to discontinue the Publication of the NEW-YORK PACKET, for several Weeks, occasioned. By the Trouble of moving as well as the great Scarcity of Printing Paper.”

Loudon had been publishing the New York Packet for only eight months before circumstances caused him to retreat to Fishkill.  He distributed the first issue on January 4, 1776, and suspended it with the August 29 edition, just before the British entered the city.  It took longer than he anticipated to resume publication.  According to Clarence S. Brigham, “The first Fishkill issue was undoubtedly that of Jan. 16, 1777, vol. 1, no. 36, but the earliest located is that of Feb. 6, 1777, vol. 1, no. 39.”[1]  Loudon continued the volume and issue numbering uninterrupted despite the suspension and relocation.  The British occupied New York throughout the remainder of the war.  Loudon remained in Fishkill, publishing his newspaper there until the end of August 1783.  He then returned to New York and continued the newspaper without changing the volume numbering in November 1783.  The war disrupted publication of the New York Packet, yet Loudon persevered.  He managed to continue supplying subscribers and other readers with news (and advertisements) despite the challenges of “removing his Printing-Office” beyond occupied New York.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 570.

June 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 24, 1776).

“FOUR PENCE per pound will be given for the best Sort of good, dry, clean LINEN RAGS.”

Colonial printers regularly inserted advertisements offering cash for rags in their newspapers.  They collected linen rags to supply to paper mills to transform into paper that they could then use to print more newspapers (with more calls for rags) or sell to consumers for other purposes.  Such notices seemed to multiply during the Revolutionary War.  Colonizers already participated in nonimportation agreements that reduced the amount of imported paper and then the war further disrupted trade.  Some printers briefly suspended their newspapers or resorted to smaller sheets amid the disruptions.

Two calls for rags appeared in the June 24, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, just days after similar notices ran in the Freeman’s Journal, published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette and the Maryland Journal, both published in Baltimore, and John Dixon and William Hunter’s Virginia Gazette, published in Williamsburg.  Other newspapers in New England, the Middle Atlantic, and the Chesapeake also carried calls for rags.  In the Lower South, James Johnston published the last known issue of the Georgia Gazette in Savannah on February 7, 1776, and John Wells suspended the South-Carolina and American Gazette from May 31 to August 2, 1776, when the British fleet approached Charleston, leaving the entire region without any newspapers and, as a result, no notices offering cash for rags.

In the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, John Keating ran a short advertisement with a headline that proclaimed, “LINEN RAGS.”  He promised four pence per pound for “the best Sort of good, dry clean LINEN RAGS, and so in Proportion for those of an inferior Quality.”  Many readers likely knew that Keating operated a “Paper Manufactory” since he frequently advertised in the various newspapers published in New York.  On many occasions he went into greater detail in his efforts to encourage the public to assist him in that enterprise by supplying rags from their households.  He depicted doing so as a patriotic duty and a way that everyone, especially women, could demonstrate their political principles.  He was much more constrained in his latest notice.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 24, 1776).

Hugh Gaine, the printer of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, ran an advertisement with identical copy except he substituted his name for Keating’s name.  Gaine likely collected rags to supply to Keating, perhaps receiving a discount on paper in return.  He distinguished his own advertisement with an elaborate border composed of printing ornaments, a line of decorative type that separated the headline from the body of the advertisement, and printing his name in a larger font.  Gaine’s advertisement ran on the first page along with notices for patent medicines that he peddled as an alternate revenue stream.  Immediately below his call for linen rags, the printer informed readers that he “HAS FOR SALE, AMERICAN MANUFACTURED WRITING PAPER, Of Excellent Quality, BY the Quire of Ream,” as well as writing supplies and a variety of other goods.  The rags that he collected might become broadsheets for printing the news or writing paper for letters that carried news that might eventually appear in the public prints.

March 18

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 18, 1776).

“The Deceiver unmasked … In answer to a Pamphlet, entitled, COMMON SENSE.”

As Robert Bell advertised Plain Truth, a response to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, in Philadelphia in March 1776, Samuel Loudon, a printer and bookseller in New York, prepared to publish and sell “The Deceiver unmasked, or Loyalty and Interest united; in answer to a Pamphlet, entitled COMMON SENSE.”  On Monday, March 18, he announced that two days later he would make available a new pamphlet “Wherein is proved that the Scheme of INDEPENDENCE is ruinous and delusive, and that in our Union with Great-Britain on liberal principles consists our greatest glory and happiness.”  By the time Loudon placed this advertisement, he may have seen an advertisement for Plain Truth in a newspaper printed in Philadelphia, borrowing the words “ruinous” and “delusive” for his own advertisement.

At first glance, this advertisement seems to contradict Thomas R. Adams’s assertion that only two pamphlets directly responding Common Sense appeared in the colonies in the six months between its publication in January and the Continental Congress declaring independence in July.  Bell published Plain Truth in the middle of March and James Humphreys, Jr., published The True Interest of America Impartially Stated in Certain Strictures on a Pamphlet Intitled Common Sense at the end of May.[1]  What about Loudon’s Deceiver Unmasked?  In a footnote, Adams explains that a “third pamphlet … was printed by Samuel Loudon in New York, but it was never sold because a Committee of Mechanics under Christopher Duyckinck destroyed almost all of the 1,500 copies.”[2]  One of the notes in the American Antiquarian Society’s catalog entry for Deceiver Unmasked provides more information: “The New-York Historical Society copy bears the [manuscript] note: General Duykinck’s Committee went to the House of Mr. Loudon’s and destroyed all these pamphlets just as they were ready to be published. — this Copy was saved.”  That delayed rather than prevented dissemination of Deceiver Unmasked.  The pamphlet eventually came off Humphreys’s press in Philadelphia as The True Interest of America.  Readers intrigued by Loudon’s advertisement for Deceiver Unmasked had to wait months for its publication, not knowing during that time whether Loudon or any other printer would even attempt it.  The first edition met with sufficient success that Humphreys issued a second edition.  While neither Plain Truth nor Deceiver Unmasked/True Interest of America had much impact, the publication and marketing of these responses to Common Sense demonstrates that printers believed a market existed for Loyalist tracts.

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[1] Thomas R. Adams, “The Authorship and Printing of Plain Truth by ‘Candidus,’” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 49, no. 3 (1955): 230-231.

[2] Adams, “Authorship and Printing,” 230.

February 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (January 12, 1776).

“JOHN RICHARDSON’s HARDWARE and JEWELLERY STORE.”

John Richardson ran an advertisement for his “HARDWARE and JEWELLERY STORE” in the February 12, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  He was not alone in his marketing efforts.  Richard Sause also placed an advertisement for a “JEWELLERY, CUTLERY, HARD-WARE, and HABERDASHERY STORE.”  Both emphasized consumer choice as a marketing strategy, but they deployed very different formats in demonstrating the choices they offered to customers.

The bulk of Richardson’s advertisement consisted of a dense paragraph of text that listed his inventory, including a “neat and general assortment of jewellery, and jewellers materials; watches and watch materials, good choice of gilt and plated buckles, metal and steel buckles; materials for coach-makers, ditto for saddlers and cabinet-makers; … ladies pocket books, hand vices, plyers, nut crackers, buckle patterns, metal shoe clasps, lables for bottles, mother of pearl tea tongs, [and] gilt sleeve buttons.”  It was an array of merchandise that Richardson invited readers to imagine and, hopefully, examine for themselves.

Sause listed even more items in his advertisement, yet that was not the only reason that it occupied more than twice as much space on the page.  Rather than cram everything together in a single paragraph, Sause opted to list small collections of items – one, two, or three at a time – together yet on separate lines.  Those lists sometimes overflowed onto indented second and subsequent lines; the indentations provided a visual cue that further distinguished the wares that Sause promoted.  For instance, the entry for “Gold lace, tinsel and com- / mon watch braids” did not run into the next entry for “Silver corals, and a variety of / fashionable silver buckles.”  Sause also divided his advertisement into two columns (just as he had done in a previous advertisement), making it even more visually distinctive.

Although Richardson and Sause sold similar merchandise and both made appeals to consumer choice, they made different decisions about how to present their goods to prospective customers in the public prints.  Richardson may have opted for economy by purchasing less space in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, while Sause, drawing on experience, could have considered it worth the investment to take up more space in the newspaper.

January 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (January 22, 1776).

“To be sold by W. GREEN … COMMON SENSE.”

Just days after an advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense made its first appearance in a newspaper beyond those published in Philadelphia, a second advertisement appeared in yet another newspaper.  The Constitutional Gazette carried that first advertisement on January 20, 1776.  A variation ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury on January 22.

Both advertisements included the title of the political pamphlet, “COMMON SENSE,” though the version in the Constitutional Gazette indicated that it was “ADDRESS TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA” while the one in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury instead stated that it was “ADDRESSED TO THE Inhabitants of North-America.”  Both listed the “interesting SUBJECTS” contained within the pamphlet, offering four section headings that included “Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution” and “Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs.”  Both concluded with an epigraph from James Thomson’s poem, “Liberty” (1734): “Man knows no Master save creating HEAVEN, / Or those whom Choice and common Good ordain.”  Those lines previewed the arguments readers would encounter in the pamphlet.  These advertisements in newspapers printed in New York replicated those previously published in newspapers in Philadelphia.

The new advertisement in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury did have one significant difference from the earlier advertisements.  It did not include the name of the publisher of the first edition, Robert Bell.  The introduction to the version in the Constitutional Gazette did mention the prominent printer and bookseller, advising readers that “ROBERT BELL, in Third-Street, Philadelphia,” sold the pamphlet and then also listing William Green, a “Bookseller, in Maiden Lane, New-York,” as a local purveyor of Common Sense.  The version in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, however, eliminated Bell and named Green as the sole vendor of the pamphlet: “Just published, and to be sold by W. GREEN.  BOOKBINDER, in MAIDEN-LANE.”  Eighteenth-century readers knew to separate the phrases “Just published” and “to be sold by.”  Only the latter referred to Green’s role in the production and distribution of the pamphlet.  The phrase “Just published” merely meant “now available.”  Green did not print Common Sense, but when he submitted copy for his advertisement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury’s printing office he privileged his role in making the incendiary new pamphlet available in that city.  As the pamphlet gained popularity, John Anderson, the printer of the Constitutional Gazette, published and advertised a local edition (and a second local edition), but for a short time Green was the only retailer in New York hawking the pamphlet in the public prints.  His marketing efforts contributed to the stir caused by Paine’s appeal to declare independence rather than continue to seek a redress of grievances within the imperial system.

January 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (January 15, 1776).

“Dr. Hill’s American Balsam; whose great efficacy is so well known.”

Nine months after his advertisements first appeared in newspapers in New York, shopkeeper Michael Hoffman continued receiving shipments of “DOCTOR HILL’s newly improved great STOMACHIC TINCTURE” and “Dr. Hill’s American Balsam” from an associate in Philadelphia.  His advertisement in the January 15, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury echoed the one he previously placed in the May 4, 1775, edition of the New-York Journal, though it featured slightly different copy.  Hoffman reminded prospective customers that the tincture was “a very excellent medicine for all weak stomach, as it procures a good healthy appetite, and a sound digestion.”  In addition, it supposedly prevented all sorts of diseases since most, according to the advertisement, “have their origin contracted in a weak stomach.”  The balsam, on the other hand, “is so well known to cure the most inveterate disorder in the breast, as shortness of breath, colds, coughs, and whooping coughs in children.”  Yet that was not all!  Through “a proper use and continuing the same a reasonable time,” the balsam “effectually cured … the most painful rhumatisms, cholic, gravel [kidney stones] and consumption.”

Yet Hoffman did not promote just the efficacy of these patent medicines.  In his effort to attract customers, he assured them that “Doctor Hill’s own directions, printed in London, are wrapt about each bottle” to prevent confusion about the dosage once they took the medicines home.  Those directions, however, included the price in “sterling money,” but Hoffman’s customers could ignore that.  He had worked out a deal for bargain pricing for the benefit of “the poor and indigent” in New York.  In that city, the medicines sold for four shilling and ten pence per bottle.  Even better, those who bought a dozen bottles received a discount, only four shillings and four pence per bottle.  Those customers saved ten percent, a good deal for those who intended to follow Hoffman’s directions to continue taking the medicine for “a reasonable time.”  As had been the case all along, Hoffman had an exclusive appointment to sell Dr. Hill’s tincture and balsam in New York.  He directed customers to his shop “in the Broad-Way, near the Oswego-Market” so they could avoid counterfeits peddled elsewhere.

January 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (January 8, 1776).

“WRITING TAUGHT in six Weeks … Specimens of Improvement may be seen.”

Among the various advertisements that appeared in the January 8, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, W. Elphinston offered his services as a writing tutor.  Although writing and reading are skills often taught simultaneously today, that was not always the case in eighteenth-century America.  For instance, at “Mrs. TAYLOR’s BOARDING SCHOOL” for “young LADIES” in Philadelphia, all students learned “Reading and the Grammar” along with sewing and embroidery, but they had to pay extra for instruction from a “Writing Master,” a “Drawing Master,” a “Dancing Master,” a “Musick Master,” and other tutors.  Some colonizers learned to read without simultaneously learning writing (or arithmetic).  Those who made their mark on documents rather than signing their names did not necessarily lack the skill to read those documents, but they did not benefit from instruction in forming the letters that they knew how to read.

Elphinston offered his assistance.  He did not teach reading; he assumed that his prospective students already possessed that skill at some level.  He expected them to apply what they already knew about reading to learning to write.  Elphinston claimed that his pupils would learn to write in just six weeks, provided that they devoted an hour per day to their lessons.  In addition to novices, he also helped those with rudimentary ability to improve their writing, yet he did not merely ask prospective students to take his word for it.  Instead, he made “Specimens of Improvement” available at the house where he gave lessons.  Anyone who considered engaging his services could examine those specimens themselves to see what kind of progress Elphinston’s former students made because of their lessons with the writing tutor.  He was not the only writing master to make specimens available to the public.  When a “Person from Boston” relocated to Connecticut and advertised that he “will teach in the most elegant and easy Manner, the several Hands now in Practice, both Useful and Ornamental,” he noted that a “Specimen of [his] Performance, in the several hands abovementioned, is left with the Printer … for the Inspection of any Person” who might hire him.  Newspaper advertisements attracted attention, but writing tutors believed that samples could seal the deal.

December 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (December 25, 1775).

“The Deputy Post-Master General is obliged, for the present, to stop all the posts.”

In the summer and fall of 1775, advertisements for local Constitutional Post Offices, established by the Second Continental Congress as an alternative to the imperial system, appeared in newspapers printed in several colonies.  Postmasters provided schedules.  Post riders offered their services.  As winter arrived, the Deputy Postmaster General of the “parliamentary post (as [supporters of the American cause] are pleased to term it)” published an advertisement announcing that he “is obliged, for the present, to stop all the posts.”  He did not cite competition from the Constitutional Post.  Instead, he blamed the actions of provincial conventions meeting in some of the colonies and abuses by rogues who tampered with private letters.

In Maryland, for instance, one of those conventions passed a resolve that “the parliamentary post … shall not be permitted or suffered to travel in, or pass through, that province, with any mail, packages, or letters.”  In turn, they had confiscated “his Majesty’s mail from the post-office at Baltimore.”  Similarly, a committee in Philadelphia seized “the last packet letters to the southward … and signified to the post-master their intentions of stopping all others for the future.”  That was not all!  That committee also “opened many of [the letters], to the great hurt of individuals,” engaging in some of the same behavior that had caused William Goddard first to envision the Constitutional Post and then advocate that the Second Continental Congress officially endorse it.  The Deputy Postmaster General suggested that it was the Sons of Liberty and their supporters who had infringed on the liberties of others.

Yet this did not end the imperial postal system, though the procedures for delivering letters changed: “for the safety of the letters coming by the next or any future packet,” a ship that carried mail, “they will be kept onboard, and the names of those who shall have letters will be advertised.”  Even if Hugh Gaine, the printer of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury who had recently published a local edition of the Journal of the Proceedings of the Continental Congress, did not care for every British policy, he almost certainly welcomed the advertising revenue for running this notice and the prospects for publishing lists of those who had letters waiting for them aboard packet ships in the harbor.  He was not a staunch patriot like John Holt, printer of the New-York Journal, and John Anderson, printer of the Constitutional Gazette, helping to explain why the advertisement concerning the “GENERAL POST-OFFICE” first appeared in his newspaper.

October 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 23, 1775).

“BEST geneva, made and distilled from rye.”

When John Felthausen wanted the public to know about the “BEST geneva [or genever], made and distilled from rye,” that he produced, he placed an advertisement in the October 23, 1775, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  He declared that he distilled his spirits “in the same manner as Holland geneva is made,” assuring prospective customers of the quality and taste.  To entice readers to purchase his genever, Felthausen reported that “some gentlemen have advertised in this paper to encourage that business” because “there is not any person at present, that distills liquor from grain in this government” or colony.  In answer to colonizers who expressed a desire for someone to take responsibility for distilling genever and other spirits in New York, Felthausen suggested that they had a responsibility to support his business now that he accepted their charge to launch such an enterprise.

Yet Felthausen did not address solely those who had written of their desire to see genever produced locally.  Instead, he proclaimed that he “hoped every friend to his country” would buy his genever, “especially at those times when we ought to give a preference to our own manufactures.”  The distiller made a “Buy American” argument, confident that prospective customers knew all about the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement devised by the First Continental Congress in response to the Coercive Acts.  The Continental Association also called on colonizers to promote “Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country” as alternatives to imported goods.  Throughout the colonies, supporters of the American cause mobilized around the choices that they made in the marketplace.  Many became even more determined to so after the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Entrepreneurs like Felthausen encouraged consumers to practice politics when they made purchases, presenting their decisions as civic duties for “every friend to his country.”

September 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 25, 1775).

“Illustrated with a beautiful Plan of Boston, and the Provincial Camp.”

When fall arrived, it was time to market almanacs for the coming year.  It was an annual ritual in American newspapers from New England to Georgia.  Hugh Gaine, the printer of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, began advertising “HUTCHIN’s Improv’d: BEING AN ALMANACK … For the Year of our LORD 1776” on September 18, 1775, and then inserted his extensive notice in subsequent issues.  The almanac’s contents included the usual astronomical data, such as “Length of Days and Nights” as well as a schedule of the courts, a description of roads to other cities and towns, and “useful Tables, chronological Observations and entertaining Remarks.”  Gaine enumerated thirty-one of those items, such as a “Very comical, humorous, and entertaining Adventure of a young LADY that used to walk in her sleep,” an essay on the “evil Consequences of Sloth and Idleness,” and a “Method for destroying Caterpillars on Trees.”

If all of that was not enough to entice customers, Gaine made sure that they knew that the almanac was “Illustrated with a beautiful Plan of Boston, and the Provincial Camp.”  That proclamation led the advertisement, appearing immediately above the title of the almanac.  Gaine then devoted the greatest amount of space to describing the map: “13. A very neat Plan of the Town of Boston, shewing at one View, the Provincial Camp, Boston Neck, Fortification, Commons, Battery, Magazines, Charlestown Ferry, Mill Pond, Fort Hill, Corps Hill, Liberty Tree, Windmill Point, South Battery, Long Wharf, Island Wharf, Hancock’s [Wharf], Charlestown, Bunker’s Hill, Winter Hill, Cobble Hill, Forts, Prospect Hill, Provincial Lines, Lower Fort, Upper [Fort], Main Guard, Cambridge College, Charles River, Pierpont’s Mill, Fascine Battery, Roxbury Hill Lines, General Gage’s Lines, Dorchester Hill and Point, and Mystick River.”  As the siege of Boston continued, Daine realized that colonizers in Boston would be interested in supplementing what they read in newspapers and heard from others with a map that would help them envision and better understand recent events.

What was the source for the map?  According to the catalog description for the almanac by PBA Galleries, Auctioneers and Appraisers, the map, “titled a ‘Plan of Boston,’ details Boston’s Shawmut Peninsula and with a smaller inset of the greater Boston area.  Both maps appear to be based on the ‘New and Correct Plan of the Town of Boston and Provincial Camp,’ which appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine for July, 1775.”  The image that Aitken marketed to spur magazine sales found its way into another periodical publication.  Another printer used it to generate demand for an item produced on his press.

Gaine also listed “11. The whole Process of making SALT PETRE, recommended by the Hon. The Continental Congress, for the making of which there is a Bounty now given both in this and the neighbouring Provinces” and “12. The Method of making Gun-Powder, which at this Juncture may be carried into Execution in a small Way, by almost every Framer in his own Habitation.”  The auction catalog further clarifies that the almanac contains “the Resolution of Congress, July 28, 1775 on the necessity of making gunpowder in the colonies, signed in print by John Hancock, with a recipe for gunpowder on the reverse of the map.”  More than ever, current events played a part in compiling the contents and then marketing almanacs.

“Plan of Boston,” in Hutchins Improved: Being an Almanack and Ephemeris … For the Year of Our Lord 1776 (New York: Hugh Gaine, 1775). Courtesy PBA Galleries, Auctioneers and Appraisers.