Item #118989 Catalogue 1925. Paints and Oils, Sanitary Ware, Brushware, Hardware, Varnish, Tools. Cowell Bros. & Coy., Limited ... [Hardware Catalogue ... (cover title)]. Trade Catalogue.

[Trade Catalogue]

Catalogue 1925. Paints and Oils, Sanitary Ware, Brushware, Hardware, Varnish, Tools. Cowell Bros. & Coy., Limited ... [Hardware Catalogue ... (cover title)]

Norwood, The Company, 1925.

Quarto, 112 pages with many hundreds of illustrations (but one leaf, 39/40, has been excised).

Pictorial wrappers (stapled through the inner margin) with minimal expert conservation to the spine and the leading edge of the front cover; trifling signs of use; an excellent copy.

'We have pleasure in submitting this our First Illustrated Catalogue of General Hardware' (foreword). Henry James Cowell (1855-1935), born in Clarendon, SA, became a timber merchant at Norwood in 1876, and his brother, James William Cowell (1856-1910) joined him in 1880, henceforth trading as Cowell Brothers. Henry James Cowell then retired from the business, and practised as an architect in Adelaide from 1888. His brother 'continued to manage Cowell Brothers at 45 The Parade, Norwood, timber merchants and general ironmongers, steam saw and moulding mills'. The firm expanded into the city and Port Adelaide, and eventually became Cowell Bros & Co. (Cowell family history notes by Reg Butler, online). The title of this catalogue fails to mention a major part of its contents, an omission made good in part by the inclusion of two copies of the 'Price List of Mantels and Grates' (dated 1 May 1925). Pages 23-44 are devoted to mantels, depicted in large illustrations at no more than two per page. The excised leaf has been taken from this section. Not in Trove.