Item #CL169-62 [Kauri Gum-diggers Of New Zealand]
[Kauri Gum-diggers Of New Zealand]
[Kauri Gum-diggers Of New Zealand]
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[Kauri Gum-diggers Of New Zealand]

c1890s-1896.

Group of three items concerning kauri gum, which was a major New Zealand export from the end of the 19th to early 20th centuries. The “gum-diggers” were men and women who dug for the kauri gum, a fossilised resin, which was used mainly for varnish, the manufacture of linoleum, and for carved objects for tourists.

(a) [Gumdiggers, New Zealand]. c1890s. Pair of printout paper photographs by Joseph Tuffley Cowdell (NZ, 1862-1907), cabinet card format, photographer’s line in letterpress on original backing of one image, 10 x 14.3cm, 9.9 x 13.6cm. Minor scratches to images, both laid down on original backing.

(b) A Merry Christmas. Fearfully And Wonderfully Made: The Gumdiggers’ Christmas Pudding [New Zealand] . 1896. Lineblock and letterpress, page from the Observer’s Christmas Annual, annotated in an unknown hand in ink on both sides, 36.8 x 24.7cm (paper). Missing portions, tears stains, old folds and soiling overall.

Annotations include “To our friends at home”, “Ike Simpson, Gumdigger” and “From Alcyone to Bertie.”

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Item #CL169-62

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