An extraordinary survival in terms of condition and completeness, of both the box and accompanying pamphlet. We have found no other examples of either the pamphlet or the boxed collection, let alone the two together.
The pamphlet begins, verso the wrapper, with a list of the 6 collections available: No.1 in a cardboard box; No.2, (as with ours) in an upmarket mahogany box; Nos. 3-6 with the specimens on stands under a “glass shade.” No. 5 collection is illustrated on the back wrapper.
The rest of the pamphlet details the metals in order of importance, giving history / localities where found, their uses, etc. Hence, under “Specimen No.1” and “Specimen No.2” we have Gold Ore / Gold, “Found in Australia (1851), California (1847), [etc.]... The gold contained in spoiled photographic prints, cuttings from the edges of portraits, &c., may all be recovered by the art of the Chemist [i.e. Johnson], and made available again, at a comparatively small cost.... It is the first metal mentioned in the Bible...” Johnson’s explanations of the metals generally detail, where appropriate, their use in the photographic and other processes.
This is appropriate because a large part of Johnson & Sons activities, aside from their role as independent and accredited assayers, were as retailers of equipment and chemicals, etc., used in photography; for example, providing chemicals for the Fox-Talbot calotype photographic process from around 1839. A directory of 1865 notes the firm as "assayers to the Bank of England and Her Majesty's Mint, assayers of bullion, metals, minerals, pigments etc., refiners of platinum, manufacturers of nitrate of silver and other photographic chemicals (wholesale), manufacturers of bullion and other standard weights,chemical apparatus etc. Importers and collectors of minerals and mineralogical specimens".
John Grove Johnson I (1833-1908) entered the family business in 1849. In 1860, he become a liveryman of the Goldsmiths Company. He lived in Southwood Court, in London’s Highgate, from 1877 until his death in 1908. Allegedly, Johnson was a descendant of the messenger who had alerted Robert the Bruce - who was staying in what was the Earl of Gloucester’s hunting lodge, Highgate, in 1305 - about his impending arrest by Edward I.