⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 2–3 weeks for delivery

This book is printed one copy at a time when you order it. There is no warehouse shelf of these — your copy goes on the press after you check out. Please allow 2–3 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

Rumsey & Co. Fire Apparatus Works — Illustrated Catalogue, 51st Edition, 1898. 'Rumsey's Celebrated Fire Apparatus,' manufactured by Rumsey & Co., Limited, of Seneca Falls, New York — established 1840, with its apparatus 'in actual service' in over 4000 cities and villages in all parts of the world. This is the fifty-first edition of the catalog of one of America's great fire equipment makers, reproduced complete.

Inside the 78 pages: steam fire engines from Seneca Falls' other great builder — the rival of Silsby across town; hose carts and hose carriages, hook and ladder trucks, chemical engines, hand engines, and the full 1898 line of fire department apparatus and supplies, illustrated throughout with the specifications a fire committee needed to place an order. It is the working fire trade of the Gilded Age in catalog form.

Fire apparatus historians will find a major builder at the top of its form — and the claim of four thousand equipped departments makes this catalog a map of American fire protection in the 1890s. For the antique fire engine enthusiast, the engravings are reference gold: how the apparatus was built, trimmed, and decorated — the painted and striped finish work of the 1890s fire trade lives on these pages.

Scarce in original form — trade catalogs were working documents, used hard and discarded. This 51st-edition survivor is back in print for fire buffs, apparatus restorers, and collectors of fire service ephemera.

Details: 6×9" paperback, 78 pages, black and white interior, cream paper.

⚠️ Please read before ordering — about print quality

This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document. The pages were scanned from an original 1898 printing, and the print quality of your book reflects the condition of that original scan.

What that means in plain terms: you may see faded text, uneven inking, age spots, show-through from the back of pages, and other imperfections that were in the 1898 original or introduced by the scanning process. These are preserved as-is — they are not printing defects, and they are not something we can fix.

We are not responsible for the condition of the original source material. If you want a pristine modern typeset book, this isn't it. If you want the actual 1898 manual with all its character intact, you're in the right place.

Printed on demand by IngramSpark. One copy at a time — no inventory, no waste.