River Pass — auction comparables · Snaplot Comparables
We searched for“W.S. George River Pass collector plate Daniel Smith”(identified as W.S. George 1st Issue, Plate No. 18274A (example), confidence: High)
Typical realised range (Gemini estimate): £5-£20
Comparables
36
Median
£8,500
Suggested estimate
£3,850 – £18,100
25–75% range
£3,841 – £32,500
Overall range
£218 – £1,603,524
Distribution
Sell-through 100% of lots sold
78% at premier salerooms
Median from 31 sold (all-time — too few recent sales)·hammer prices, excl. buyer's premium — fair-market auction value (retail/insurance replacement runs higher)
<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>(CHINA). </strong></span></p>
<p>The Jews at K’ae-Fung-Foo. Being a Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry, to the Jewish Synagogue at K'ae-Fung-Foo, on Behalf of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among Jews.</p>
<p>Shanghai, London Missionary Society Press, 1851.</p>
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<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>FIRST EDITION.</strong></span> Text in English, Chinese and occasional Hebrew. <span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>FOLDING WOOD-BLOCK MAP.</strong></span></p>
<p>pp. xii, 82. Ex-library. Inscriptions on opening two pages, final two leaves with light wear. Recent boards. 8vo.<br /></p>
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<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>EXCEPTIONALLY RARE.</strong></span> The last copy recorded at auction was the Robinson copy (Sotheby’s, London, 1988, sold for 3,520 pounds) whose description is quoted below: </p>
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<p>Introduction by the Right Revd. George Smith, D.D. Lord Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong), which sketches out Western knowledge of the Chinese Jews, whose presence was first noted by Matteo Ricci. </p>
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<p>In 1850 two Chinese Christians traveled to K'ae-Fung-Foo following an appeal to the British Consul at Amoy and found the small Jewish community in very impoverished circumstances. There had been no Rabbi in the community for fifty years, and their understanding of Hebrew had been lost: 'During the past 40 or 50 years our religion has been but imperfectly transmitted, and although its religious writings still exists, there is none who understands as much as one word of them … It has been our desire to repair the synagogue, and again to procure ministers to serve in it; but poverty prevented us'. </p>
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<p>It was assumed that this Jewish community originated in Persia in the tenth century, and on a second journey the Hebrew manuscripts from the synagogue, which was built in 1163, were purchased and brought to W.H. Medhurst in Shanghai. Some of the manuscripts were to sent to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among Jews, whilst several of the manuscripts were given to the Canton office of Sassoon & Co. and remained in the celebrated Sassoon Collection for decades. Two other manuscripts ended up in the collection of the Hebrew Union College in Cinncinati. For further information see J. Preuss, The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng-Fu, Tel Aviv, 1961.</p>
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<p> For more on the Jews of Kaifeng, see: Diaspora Museum Catalogue, The Jews of Kaifeng (1984); Xu Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China (2003); I. Kalmar & D. Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews (2004); A. Erlich, Jewish-Chinese Nexus (2008).</p>
