[GILBERT ISLANDS] Illustrated Catalogue of Ethnographical Specimens. de OLDMAN, William O. (1879-1949)

Issued by W.O. Oldman, 77, Brixton Hill, London, S.W. September 1905. No. 30. Octavo, original printed wrappers (detached), pp 2 (brief descriptions of 37 items), followed by 2 tipped-in silver gelatin photographs, illustrating most items. Scarce original sales catalogue of the renowned early ethnographic dealer W.O. Oldman. Includes 11 artefacts from the Gilbert Islands, among them a rare full suit of coconut-fibre and stingray-skin armour; and 26 items of Chinese weaponry (swords, cross-bows, arrows, quiver etc.). William Ockelford Oldman was a British collector and dealer of ethnographic art and European arms and armour. His business W.O. Oldman, Ethnographical Specimens, London was mostly active between the late 1890s and 1913. A large number of artefacts sold by Oldman now reside in some of the world's most important ethnographic collections, and his illustrated sales catalogues, issued between 1901 and 1913, remain significant works of reference. Oldman's private collection of Oceanic artefacts was sold to the New Zealand Government in 1948 and is now administered by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.