However, occasionally they were offered as pairs in cases or with wooden stands as a pair of miniature table globes.
It was one of the latter that sold to an internet bidder for £26,000 (estimate £2000-3000) as part of the clocks and scientific instruments auction at Dreweatts (26/25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) in Newbury on September 13.
Both terrestrial and the much rarer celestial globe had papers by John and William Cary of The Strand, dated 1791.
They were consigned for sale as part of a group of items once belonging to Bostonians Edith Wires (1872-1962) and her husband Harry Taft Hayward (1868-1930), cousin of William Howard Taft, the 27th US President.
One of their daughters Mary Elizabeth Taft had married the Chilean born Henry Bernard Arthur de Bruyne and moved to Sussex shortly before the Second World War.
Prized for their rarity as a pair, the globes, meridian rings and ebonised stands were also admired for the good original condition.
Pocket version
Terrestrial pocket globe by John and William Cary, £4000 at Moore Allen & Innocent.
Another version of this terrestrial pocket globe by the well-known firm featured in the August 9-10 sale held by Moore Allen & Innocent (21% buyer’s premium) in Cirencester.
The single globe, which dates from c.1800 and was inscribed Carey’s Pocket Globe agreeable to the latest discoveries London, published by J & W Carey [sic], Strand, April 3rd 1791, was contained in a red Morocco leather case. This was internally decorated with A table of latitudes & longitudes of places not given on this globe and The World as known in Caesar’s time agreeable to D’Auville.
The globe itself was in good condition although there are sections missing in the North and South Pole areas around the pin. The case too was basically sound but with some wear and tear conducive with age, such as a crack above the globe pin holder on the side featuring the table of latitudes and longitudes.
It sold for a mid-estimate price of £4000.
