Sender: Rare Books and Special Collections Forum <EXLIBRIS@RUTVM1.BITNET>
Greetings,
I recently received a question from a patron who is researching the
history of the dollar sign. His question concerns the first use of the
dollar sign in printed text and I told him I would pass on his query to
Exlibris to see what responses it might get.
Evan's _American Bibliography_ has an annotation under the entry for
Chauncey Lee's _The American Accomptant_ (printed by William Wands in
Lansingburgh in 1797) which states "it is claimed that this work was the
first to use the dollar mark." Furthermore, Updike's _Printing Types :
Their History, Forms & Use_ states that in 1797 the Philadelphia foundry
of Archibald Binny and James Ronaldson "offered for sale the first
dollar marks ever made in type" (vol. 2, p. 153). I didn't find
examples of it in _The specimen books of Binny and Ronaldson, 1809-
1812, in Facsimile_ (Connecticut : Columbiad Club, 1936).
The patron's question concerns the dollar sign used in _The
American Accomptant_, a book which he has seen but I have not--
thus my difficulty in answering his question adequately. His
question is:
"Each printed dollar mark used in _The American Accomptant_
written by Chauncey Lee and published in 1797 is slightly different
from the others indicating that type cast from a hard matrix was
not used. How was this type produced and why would each form of the
mark differ from every other form used in the work? This dollar
mark is not the dollar sign that is used today and was never used
again after the publication of this book."
Essentially he is asking why there are variant forms of the
dollar mark which most likely would have been produced by
a series of processes that would not allow for such variance.
Thus, he assumes the mark was not printed from type made in the
conventional way. Since I haven't had the opportunity to see the
book I was hoping that someone who is familiar with the work (or who
otherwise has some ideas to offer) would respond to the list or to
me directly as you see fit.
Thanks,
Jon Grennan (Internet: jgrennan@artsci.wustl.edu)
Special Collections
Olin Library
Washington University in St. Louis