The Dutch collector Jan Tholenaar, who recently passed away, put together one of the most extensive and exceptional private collections of typespecimens in the world. This book is volume one (1628-1900) of a planned two volume visual history of typespecimens taken from his collection. It shows examples of many of the most famous and most beautiful specimens ever printed; although it only gives brief bibliographical references of their printing history. It also contains a 'key-card' which allows the user to gain access to more than 1000 high resolution scans used to illustrate the book.