For sale by candle at Garraway's Coffee-House,

A rare catalogue listing items ranging from '81 chests pale Peruvian bark' to '3 casks Mother-o'-Pearl Shells' to '10 bales liquorice root.'

'Auction by candle' or 'sale by inch of candle' was one of the normal ways in which auctions were organised until about the turn of the 18th century. There are two main variations. In one a short candle (usually about an inch) is lit and bidding continues until it goes out, and the last bid made before it goes out is the one that stands. Alternatively, a pin or nail is stuck into a lighted candle, and the bidding stops when it falls out. The present catalogue is a relatively late example, the practice generally dying out around the end of the eighteenth century.