WHOLESALE

Pp.1-366 (paginated),[4], leather binding, bumped and worn, contents sound and in good condition. Registered number of theCompany given on endpaper. Minutes recorded from the beginning of the Company, first meeting of the Directors, Including Kearley and Tonge - a purchase agreement) 17 May 1895 (Contract for purchase, £10,000, etc.). Subjects include: appointment of secretary, Bankers, auditors, allotment of shares, Bank balances, properties (development and expansion), shares, transfers, shop facias ("International Stores"), purchase of peoperties, repairs and renovations.

The Victoria County History volume for the County of Oxford, Banbury Hundred, describes the firm of Stone & Son as an 'important firm [...] founded by Henry Stone, a Banbury bookseller, who in 1871 started to manufacture a patent letter-filing box invented by his brother-in-law, John Cash of Coventry; first the business developed into general cabinet-making and cardboard-box manufacture, then into high-grade colour printing, and finally into fine-art reproduction.

On a ruled leaf of laid paper detached from an account book. Dimensions 28.5 x 18.5 cm. Text clear and complete. On aged paper with chipping to extremities. One page, headed 'Xmas Toys 1879.' is filled with twenty-seven entries, beginning with '1 Gross 1/2 Flags 2 Gros 1/4 Candles [last word deleted] Flags' and ending with '1/2 Glass Toys. | 48 doz 1/2 Bird on Stand'. Other entries include 'Duck in Boats', 'Bird on Ball', 'Stag in Angle' and 'Glass Bird on Large Stand'. The reverse carries nine entries under the heading 'Moocrofts', the first being '504 6 Gross Shoe Plain 24/- 7..4..0'.