Rare hand-coloured lithograph titled The Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California: I Neither Borrow nor Lend which sold for $3250 (£2280) at PBA Galleries.
Appropriately enough, it was part of a Californian sale of January 25 held by PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium), where it doubled its estimate in selling at $3250 (£2280).
There are also three recorded copies of an issue published by Currier, or Currier & Ives.
A lengthy description attached to one in the National Library of Australia reads, in part: “The ‘gold hunter’ is a well dressed man, laden with gold mining tools, scales, link sausages, fish and a pot for a hat. In the background a road sign reads: ‘To St Louis 350 miles. To California 1700 miles’. The ‘gold hunter’ is wearing the trade marks of the California digger …thigh length boots, Colt navy pistol and Bowie knife.”
