Manufacture Francaise d'Armes & Cycles de Saint-Etienne. Societe Anonyme au Capital de 10,000,000 de Francs

St. Etienne, Loire. Wraps. Good. N.d., circa 1919, based on one plate with women's fashion from that year. 4to. 25 by 18.5 cm. 660 pp. plus wraps. Catalogue of the French answer to Sears Roebuck -- a more specialized version -- with great variety of goods, including furniture, clocks, silverware, cameras, etc.; but the greatest emphasis is on sporting equipment, and particularly firearms and other paraphernalia for shooting and hunting, cycling, as clear from the title, and then followed by other sports, and the outdoor life more generally. This is expressed particularly in the color plates, which depict fox-hunting, shooting, cycling, etc. Many other curious goods are for sale, including cannons for public ceremonies. A whole section is devoted to typewriters, which includes short pieces speaking the virtues of the relatively new technology and offering advise on its use. For antique collectors, there are a rich array of now antique objets d'art such as inkwells, vases, or bronzes. For bibliophiles, there are many albums (for photos and scrap) that one now encounters at book fairs -- here these vintage bindings are being offered as brand new. And on and on -- it is impossible to concisely describe all the variety of goods that were on offer here. This is a catalogue that is both enjoyable to leaf through if one is at all casually interested in the material culture of the past and useful as a reference on this material culture, or any of the many kinds of goods covered by the catalogue. The pages are heavily age toned, as per the type of paper used. The wraps have flattened creases and considerable wear from use but are essentially intact.