LIPP Laurent Guide des négocians dans toutes leurs entreprises mercantiles, ou Traité instructif sur le commerce de cent vingt-six villes commerçantes de l’Europe, de l’Asie et de l’Afrique; la manière d’y tenir les écritures; leurs monnoies imaginaires et effectives; cours et opérations de leurs changes…

Quérard only quotes an edition from Montpellier, 1798; idem for INED; not in Einaudi or BnF.

Rare first edition.

Of Swiss origin, secretary to Baron de Reding who commanded a Swiss regiment, Laurent Lipp followed his regiment when it was sent to Tarragona and then to Girona in 1761. There he met Josepa Vidal y Jordana, whom he married in 1764. The couple lived in Catalonia and Genoa for 30 years.

His work is a practical guide to the techniques of maritime trade, and in his preface, the author, noting the inadequacies of the books by Giraudeau, Savary and Ricard, states that he wrote it “based on my own experience of some thirty-six years of trading, in one of the most illustrious and commercial cities in Italy (Genoa) and in Barcelona. I consulted the authors who seemed to me to be the most accurate; I had very expensive memoirs sent to me from the main places in Europe…”.

Volume II contains, from pp. 447 to the end, a Dictionary of sea, land and banking trade terms. Also inserted at the end of the same volume (pp. 622/623) is a note on the United States of America concerning import duties on various products from Europe and China. In addition to industrial products (steel, cables, cotton, hemp, nails, sailing wire, etc.), the list includes luxury goods and spirits (cocoa, coffee, cheese, beer and wine).

“Toutes les marchandises de la Chine, faïence, miroirs, cristaux, papier peint, pour écrire, etc., onrements, parfumsgants, chapeaux, souliers, bas; or, argent., épices, drogues médicinales… payent 15% sur leur estimation”.

A good copy, covers of volume I slightly scratched.